Competition promotes seat belt usage

WORLAND – Hot Springs County High School won the Injury Prevention Resources’ Battle of the Belts, competing against Worland High School. The winning school will have bragging rights for two years before the competition between the two schools occurs again.

“The neat part is that it’s not just bragging rights for one year, like you have in most sports rivalries, but for this one they get two years bragging rights. So every other year they get to defend the belt,” Injury Prevention Resources Safety Education Coordinator Tom Cunningham said.

The Battle of the Belts is a program created by Injury Prevention Resources. It is similar to a sports competition with two rival schools competing for the championship belt/ title in their sport. This sport is as simple as brushing your teeth, just remember to wear your seat belt.

The program begins with a pre-SBOS (Seat Belt Observation Survey) where 100 cars are surveyed coming into the high schools’ parking lots. Staff and parents are in the adult group and students are in the student group. The front seat passenger and driver are looked at to see if they are wearing their seat belts properly. If they are wearing their seat belts behind the back or up under the arm it is considered a no in the proper use category, Cunningham stated. “The unannounced SBOS prior to the event starting is to get a baseline for each school,” Cunningham added.

Prior to the event, Hot Springs County High School adults were seen to wear their seat belts 50 percent of the time and students were seen to wear their seat belts 72 percent of the time. Worland High School adults were seen to wear their seat belts 65 percent of the time and students were seen to wear their seat belts 51 percent of the time.

A short period of time after the initial SBOS each school receives an assembly about the competition. “About a week or two later we go back and we do an assembly where we actually show the results. We say this is what you are doing versus your rival. We actually try to do a roll over demonstration or a convincer demonstration. Then we talk to the kids to get them riled up and get the competitive spirit going, we also give them a week’s worth of announcements, kind of give them safety tips each day and then within a week or two or at the most three weeks after the assembly we will come back and do a follow-up survey,” Cunningham explained.

The post-SBOS once again is done unannounced at the same time of day that the pre-SBOS was done sampling 100 vehicles coming into the high school parking lot. “It’s during the same time that we did the first one, it’s always at the same time as the first one to have a true apples to apples comparison. So there is no conflicting interest or anything,” Cunningham said. The school with the highest percentage is the winner, he added.

The post-SBOS showed that Hot Springs County High School adults wearing their seat belts had increased to 85 percent and students wearing their seat belts had increased to 96 percent. Worland High School adults wearing their seat belts had increased to 89 percent and students had increased to 69 percent.

According to the press release, “Injury Prevention Resources would like to specifically note the increase by students at both schools. They obviously put in effort to buckle up and make this a competition.”

With the upcoming winter season wearing your seat belt is extremely important. “The reason why we focus at this time of the year is because we are going to start seeing our road conditions change. Most of our teen drivers are newer teen drivers to the road way and with Wyoming’s weather road conditions can change in a moment’s notice. So we want to make sure that they are safe and prepared for winter,” Cunningham said. “We’ve got them thinking about seat belts, maybe they will start thinking about emergency road side kits. It’s all in the name of safety. We want to give them as much information as possible to make sure that they are prepared,” he added.