Buckle em' up. Click it. Just do it.

A 13 year old boy is in critical condition at Dell Children's Hospital this afternoon after an accident on TX 130 on Monday afternoon. His two siblings and his mother were killed. Tragic, yes. Even more heartbreaking when I read that "A preliminary investigation showed that Morfin [mother] and Sparkman [other driver] were wearing seat belts, but none of the children were..." in the article linked above.

Adult decisions to not wear seat belts are just that, adult decisions. But, if a child is not wearing the proper restraint, it is still an adult decision. That child has no choice in their plight. I wondered how many traffic deaths involved unrestrained children? And, how adult behavior could be modified to ALWAYS buckle up the tiny lives they are responsible for.

According to 2005 data (which seems to be the most up-to-date), "among passenger vehicle occupants over age 4, safety belts saved an estimated 15,632 lives in 2005. If all passenger vehicle occupants over age 4 had worn safety belts, 20,960 lives (that is, an additional 5,328) could have been saved in 2005." You can peruse through the data at your leisure, but, you'll conclude that children should be buckled in. Always.

Buckling your child into a car seat or into a seatbelt takes a minute, maybe 2. How do we insure that caregivers are making the decision to buckle em' up? The Texas Department of Transportation has initiated a comprehensive campaign to encourage restraint use across the state. This campaign targets two audiences, one being adults buckling in themselves and the second being caregivers buckling in their charges. The campaign operates under the tag line "Click It or Ticket."

This campaign has outdoor, radio, TV, theater, and oodles of press materials. You can even request materials for your organization through the website. The campaign kicked off with renewed energy on May 3 at The Long Center. A massive public installment caught the attention of passerbys. Check it out:


Below you'll find an example of an outdoor ad. Click here to watch one of the 30 second TV spots. It's pretty cute.



TxDOT seems to have taken time segmenting their audience and then reaching out with specific messaging for those audiences. Adults, parents of small kids, parents of older kids, etc. And yet, for whatever reason, two kids died on Monday afternoon along with their mother. Who knows if they could have been saved if they were buckled in. Their mother wasn't saved by her seatbelt.

And that's the hard part of trying to change behavior with advertising. Sometimes bad things happen to people, no matter how many ounces of prevention you throw at them. Keep up the good work TxDOT. What you don't hear in the news is how many lives Click It or Ticket will save.