When you read a headline that says "Your lifespan may be determined by your address," you scan the article for one thing: your address. And you hope it's not in a paragraph that ends "scientists say blowing up the asteroid is not likely, and caution against waiting until the last moment, then jumping to the right." If there's a picture of your house with a big red X, your day's shot.

Turns out it's a bit more mundane. A Blue Cross survey said that people live longer in wealthier neighborhoods. You have to live there; you can't just drive around for a few hours a day in Minnetonka and soak up some life-force. They got plenty! They can spare some! The survey doesn't have any stats for people who live on a city's border, though -- maybe people start to feel lousy, decide to go over to Edina, and get hit crossing the street. That would skew the numbers.

Now to enter boring civic-minded columnist mode: Wherever you live, you have a better chance of joining the old-coot demographic if you buckle up. This weekend the state's law-enforcement agencies begin another "Click It or Ticket" campaign, with $100 fines handed out to people who don't buckle up. I don't understand why you wouldn't. It's so ingrained in my brain that if I was sentenced to the electric chair, the first thing I'd do when I sat down is reach behind me for the strap.

If the vehicle rolls over six times, some say, I don't want to be trapped. How many times have you heard the State Patrol say "the driver would have survived, except he was trapped by a seat belt, and the gas tank exploded. Granted, this happened in a movie I saw, but the lesson still applies." Really, if you don't want to be trapped, sit on the roof and operate the vehicle with ropes and poles. Look, I'm not too happy about airbags, because I'm pretty sure it's like being punched in the face by the Pillsbury Doughboy, but I'm not going to disable it, stuff my shirt with Styrofoam packing peanuts and figure that'll do the trick.

So buckle up, please. Or you can just hope you'll crash in Edina and run into a pile of nice, soft money.

jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/blogs/lileks