Crash test dummies teach seatbelt awareness
USD 234 students have been learning a lot from a couple of dummies this week -- to help promote seatbelt usage.
Fort Scott Police Department School Resource Officer Toby Nighswonger said students in the Fort Scott schools have been meeting Vince and Larry, two crash test dummies, played by Fort Scott firefighter Drake Downing and Fort Scott Animal Control Officer Adam Miles, respectively. The purpose of the visits, according to Nighswonger, was to promote seatbelt education and awareness to students.
"Basically it's just a chance for the kids to see the crash test dummies," he said. "(Downing and Miles) have been having the time of their lives acting like a couple of crash test dummies. It's been fun."
The FSPD borrowed the costumes from the Kansas Traffic Safety Resource Office for the week as a way for Seatbelts Are For Everyone program participants to help promote awareness of wearing seatbelts to their fellow classmates.
The 13-member S.A.F.E. team is a student-driven, community-based law enforcement project promoting seatbelt use in high schools across Kansas by incorporating education through school assemblies and safety messages, and incentives , such as prize drawings, and efforts by local law enforcement agencies to carry out the Kansas seatbelt law.
Nighswonger, S.A.F.E. coordinator, said the dummies have been touring elementary schools in Fort Scott as well as Fort Scott High School. He said during presentations at the high school, members of the S.A.F.E. team donned the costumes to interact with their peers.
"They've had a ball doing it ... The elementary school loved it, absolutely loved it," Nighswonger said. "It has definitely been a fun week with these costumes."
Though the presentations have been quick, the objective was to offer students daily reminders to buckle up every time they are in a vehicle. He said the dummies provide a fun, entertaining way to get the message of seatbelt safety across to students.
Currently, the S.A.F.E. program is only available in the high school; but Nighswonger said he is working on starting a program geared toward preschool through fourth grade students and fifth through eighth grade youngsters.
"We're just trying right now to get the S.A.F.E. program all ironed out and up on its feet and running," he said.
In his five years as SRO, Nighswonger said he has never seen a seatbelt presentation like the ones he gave this week with the crash test dummies. He said it is one of the many improvements stemming from the creation of the S.A.F.E. program at FSHS.
"That program opens up a lot of avenues for seatbelt education that we didn't have before," he said.
Since the presentations began, Nighswonger said teachers have stopped him from time to time to let him know students had been talking about the crash test dummies for days after seeing the presentation. Parents also have stopped him to ask about the visits.
Nighswonger said he hopes the presentations will prompt students to educate their own parents about seatbelt awareness.
"Definitely a residual effect of all of this is that the kids help the parents remember to buckle up," he said.
A S.A.F.E. program has also been formed at Uniontown High School. A recent survey of seatbelt use among FSHS students showed that 69 percent of students use their seatbelt when traveling in a vehicle -- a number that also happens to be the average among high school students in Kansas, Nighswonger said. Kansas ranks 42nd in the nation in seatbelt use. Nighswonger said the goal of the program at FSHS is to increase that percentage to 90 percent by April.