Notre Dame Regional High School won regional award in seat-belt challenge

Your parents may not have been the only ones reminding you to buckle up recently. Groups of students at area high schools were checking for seat-belt usage as drivers entered school parking lots for the Missouri Department of Transportation's Battle of the Belt Challenge, an annual competition designed to raise seat-belt use among teens.

Statewide there were 155 participating schools in this year's challenge, including 38 in Southeast Missouri, according to a MoDOT news release.

Notre Dame Regional High School won the regional award in Southeast Missouri for highest overall seat-belt use with an ending rate of 100 percent. The school will receive a $500 award donated by American Family Insurance that is designated for seat-belt educational programs for students.

Safe driving and seat-belt use have been a focus of educational awareness programs at the high school for around 20 years, even before the school began participating in the MoDOT competition, said Angie Schaefer, head of the school's science department and coordinator of the programs.

During this year's competition, a volunteer student committee gave out candy with seat-belt reminder messages, wrote on sidewalks at the school and ran commercials on school's television channel.

"Our students are really good and tend to buckle up anyway because they have good role models at home," Schaefer said.

When the school participates in the competition, the student volunteer groups check for students wearing seat belts in every vehicle entering the school parking lot one morning at the beginning of the competition, and again at the end of the competition. Usually at the start, around 91 percent of Notre Dame students are found to be using seat belts. That number grows after the awareness campaign and totals are taken again and submitted at the end of the competition, but Schaefer said the number normally drops again when the competition is over. The Notre Dame student committee will meet next week to throw out ideas to keep improving seat-belt education programs, Schaefer said.

Other schools in the area recognized by MoDOT for high rates of seat-belt use include Saxony Lutheran High School and Oran High School. Bell City High School was recognized for being most improved, with an increase in seat-belt use from 28 to 78 percent.

According to a report from the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the annual number of traffic deaths in the Missouri went down 5 percent to 773 people in 2011. MoDOT reports seven out of 10 Missourians killed in traffic crashes are unbuckled and that use of seat belts reduce the risk of fatal injury by 45 percent.

A 2010 survey conducted on seat-belt use by teens in Missouri found that 66.5 percent of teenage drivers and front seat passengers wore seat belts, a 5 percent increase from one year earlier.

eragan@semissourian.com

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265 Notre Dame Drive, Cape Girardeau, MO