Woodstock Police seatbelt enforcement

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
May 26, 2010

Woodstock Police were out on Route 47 this morning to enforce seatbelt usage, and I stopped to observe for a few minutes.

Recent statistics indicate that Illinois drivers are in about 91% compliance with the state law, and today I was surprised by the number of violations that were spotted in a fairly short time. I think I was there about 15-20 minutes and during that time approximately 15 vehicles were spotted with either driver or front-seat passenger violations.

Previously, I've written about my personal opinion about the primary seatbelt law. However, I wear my seatbelt every time I operate my car, and I insist that passengers buckle up.

In my own case, a seatbelt saved my life when I was about 18. I ran off a rural Missouri highway at 60MPH into a cornfield, and I know exactly how it happened. I was driving on an asphalt highway just after a rain. The highway was damp. I had just passed a car and was moving back into my lane, when I went over a bump in the highway. The car got light on the springs and, instead of straightening out, my car continued on a slant off onto the shoulder and down the embankment into the cornfield.

The car, a nice 1949 Ford coupe, rolled end-over-end about three times and then slid on the left side after the left door came off. I had installed a military-style, aircraft, wide-web seatbelt, and it held me in. I had a good grip on the steering wheel, and the seatbelt had a good grip on me. When the roof crunched down over me, my head was inside the car. All I had was a little dirt on my shirt sleeve, but the car was a goner.

My only other accident happened in Sedona, Ariz. in 1990, when a distracted driver pulled out of a roadside farmer's market and drove into the right side of my car. I was the fifth car in a line of cars, and I saw her head turned toward me. When I asked her why she had pulled out, she said she was thinking about the elderly person at home waiting for her to return and hadn't seen me. So she had looked but had not seen me.

My girlfriend's 13-year-old son was riding with me, and he had always argued with me about wearing his seatbelt. I never relented and would not start the engine until he had buckled up. The seatbelt saved him from being tossed around in the car as it spun around from the impact.

So make it a habit. Buckle up. There won't be time if you see an accident shaping up.