Keeping Us Safe

Third-grader John, wearing his baseball cap, soccer shirt, and basketball shoes, holds up a notebook bearing a slogan from a 1988 Maryland campaign to require seatbelt use. The notebook says, "Please buckle up. I care."

John's grandpa Bob had editorialized on behalf of the seatbelt law, and when it passed, he was given a metal road sign similar to the thousands that were to be posted around the state warning people that buckling up was now the law. We took the sign to Alabama and presented it to the principal of Uniersity Place Elementary School, who posted it in the school driveway, even though buckling up was not yet the law in Alabama.

We are safer today than we were before seatbelts. Keep on bucklin'.