Trident Area SAFE KIDS Coalition recently announced its support of a national mobilization during the Thanksgiving holiday to protect children by stepping up enforcement of child passenger safety laws.

More than 5,000 law enforcement agencies across the nation are conducting the second 1998 wave of the Operation ABC Mobilization: American Buckles Up Children, the largest ever coordinated crackdown on drivers who don't buckle up children. Trident Area SAFE KIDS joins more than 1,000 organizations nationwide that endorse the intensive 50-state lifesaving enforcement effort.

“Tens of thousands of law enforcement officers in all 50 states will be out in force protecting children from the greatest danger they face—being unrestrained in a crash,” said Janet Dewey, executive director of the Air Bag and Safety Belt Safety Campaign, sponsor of the Operation ABC Mobilization. “We know these officers are energized by the ground swell of support from organizations across the country like Trident Area SAFE KIDS.”

“Although only law enforcement officers can write the tickets, we stand firmly behind the lifesaving message each ticket delivers,” said Amy Ethridge, coordinator of the Trident Area SAFE KIDS Coalition. “Trident Area SAFE KIDS is not just an advocacy group, but a coalition of community members who are also parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles who are committed to protecting children. The Operation ABC Mobilization is the kind of broad community-based movement our nation needs to save children's lives.”

The Thanksgiving Operation ABC Mobilization comes on the heels of a successful mobilization last Memorial Day. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's observational surveys before and after the last May mobilization showed 6 million more people buckling up. This translates into an estimated 670 lives saved each year if these people continue to use their seat belts. In addition, a survey by the National Safety Council showed fatalities went down by more than 35 percent during the mobilization/Memorial Day period.

“The impact of the last Operation ABC Mobilization clearly illustrates that high-visibility endorsement works,” said Ethridge. “That is why Trident Area SAFE KIDS gives its official Endorsement for Enforcement. We hope officers can expand the mobilization's success and, once again, save lives with a clear message to America: The law requires that children be buckled up at all times. No exceptions. No excuses.”

Crashes are the leading cause of death to American children. Last year, more than 41 children died and many others were injured in motor vehicle crashes in South Carolina. Sixty-six percent of the children who died were not buckled up.

Studies consistently show that the best way to get children buckled up is to get adults to buckle up. According to observational data, when a driver buckles up, children are buckled up 87 percent of the time; however, when a driver is unbuckled, child belt use drops to only 24 percent. A recent study by the University of California, Irvine, reported in the journal Pediatrics found “Driver restraint use was the strongest predictor of child restraint use...a restrained driver was three times more likely to restrain a child.” That is why, increasingly, officers are strengthening enforcement of adult belt laws during Operation ABC Mobilization.

Many drivers just don't believe they'll be in a crash, so they don't put on their own seat belt or make sure that children are restrained. The possibility of being stopped and ticketed is what it takes for many drivers to protect children by always buckling them up.

A survey of parents who have infants shows that the lack of adult belt use particularly endangers babies: parents who don't buckle up are more likely to improperly place babies in the front seat, leaving them at risk of being injured or killed by an air bag. According to investigations, almost all of the children who have died from air bag related injuries were completely unrestrained, improperly restrained or were infants riding in a rear-facing infant seat.

As part of their enforcement activities throughout the Operation ABC Mobilization, officers will distribute information on air bag safety and the importance of making sure children, below the age of 12, ride properly buckled up in the back seat.