Seat belts not clicking with one group: Young men

Minnesota's primary seat-belt law just turned one, and it's cause for guarded celebration. Seat-belt compliance statewide tops 90 percent. That's up 3 percent since the law was enacted on June 9, 2009, allowing law enforcement officials to stop and cite motorists solely for seat-belt violations in the front and back seats.

Now comes the guarded part. Ten percent of drivers and passengers still unbuckled is hundreds of thousands of people. Or, as Eric Roeske, lieutenant with the Minnesota State Patrol, points out, that's 57 million vehicle miles traveled unbuckled.

And while young men are doing a better job of buckling up, they remain a challenge. If you've got an emerging-adult male on your radar, you might want to have a talk.

"It just goes along with young people who tend to engage in risky behavior, that invincibility factor," Roeske said. "It's hard to make a blanket statement, but it's generally a feeling that crashes happen to other people."

Even right after nine Minnesota teens died in crashes in a two-week period, police still had to remind mostly male teens to click it or risk an approximately $110 ticket.

Minnesota motorists ages 15 to 29 account for 25 percent of all licensed drivers, but 45 percent of all unbelted deaths, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Fewer buckle up in rural areas. Add night driving and alcohol, and prepare for disaster. Eighty percent of drinking drivers killed in crashes are not buckled up; scores more are injured, often seriously.

None of this surprises Alison Pence, coordinator of injury prevention at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale. For 10 years, she has been tracking trauma data around young patients admitted to the hospital. "This is not simple bruises," she said. "These are fairly significant injuries."

Only 37 percent of those admitted had buckled up, according to officers at crash scenes. The gender divide was dramatic. Females buckled up 48 percent of the time. Males? Only 30 percent.

Patricia Halsey, who oversees the Anoka High School SADD chapter, found similar results when her teens surveyed 200 peers ages 16 to 19. Males who "always" wore one: 85 percent. Females: 96 percent.

What keeps many young men from this simple act? Peer pressure, certainly. "I know there is a large group of people, especially boys too cool for school, who think that a seat belt will ruin their coolness," said SADD member Matt Dehler, 18, who will head to Macalester College in St. Paul this fall.

Dehler, who always buckles up, won't give anybody a ride who doesn't do the same. He gets ribbed at times. "It's mostly guys who make jokes about it and act like it's no big deal." He and other male teens say guys are more likely to buckle up if females are in the car.

"Girls buckle up right away," said Ryan Dickey, 17, a senior at Maple Grove High School. "I've never seen one without her seat belt on. It's guys, mostly in the loaded back seat, who don't tend to wear them," said Dickey, who always buckles up. "They say there's not enough room."

Will a $110 fine help? Maybe, maybe not. One 17-year-old who asked that his name not be used got slapped with a seat belt ticket, but still won't wear one. He said seat belts "take more lives than they save."

Others, though, do think twice after being fined. "It's sad, but sometimes the threat of having to pay money is a greater concern than their own safety," Roeske said. "We see that with adults. It's not enough that you might get killed. It's, 'Man, I don't want to pay that ticket again.'"

Halsey's SADD chapter brainstormed ways to get teens to buckle up, including insurance incentives, and a mechanism that keeps a car from starting until everyone clicks.

Dickey's greatest fear is not that he'd forget to buckle up. It's that he'd allow a friend riding in his car to forget.

"I fear that I'd be the only one who lives," Dickey said. "I wouldn't really want to talk to the mom of a kid [who died] if I'm the only one who is alive."