{"id":16665,"date":"2017-12-21T00:06:17","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T00:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/?p=16665"},"modified":"2023-10-03T00:11:57","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T00:11:57","slug":"seat-belt-car-seat-usage-low-on-navajo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/2017\/12\/21\/seat-belt-car-seat-usage-low-on-navajo\/","title":{"rendered":"Seat belt, car seat usage low on Navajo"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY PAULY DENETCLAW<\/strong>
\nNAVAJO TIMES<\/p>\n

WINDOW ROCK<\/strong> \u2014 For Norma Bowman, her job as the program manager for highway safety is personal. In 1971, when she was six years old, she lost her father, Norman Bowman, in a car accident.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t wearing his seat belt, as was common at the time, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really feel, even now, that had he worn his seatbelt I think I would have had a life with my dad,\u201d Bowman said. \u201cIt was hard growing up without a parent and I know I\u2019m not the only one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her father was only 38 years old when he passed and the primary seatbelt and child restraint laws on the Navajo Nation had yet to be enacted. In 1988, both laws went into effect and vehicle restraint usage increased.<\/p>\n

However, they remain lower than the national average. According to Bowman, seatbelt usage for the Navajo Nation fluctuates between 67 and 70 percent compared to the national average that stays between 89 and 90 percent.<\/p>\n

The use of child safety seats is even lower on the Navajo Nation at 27 to 30 percent. The national average is over 50 percent, said Bowman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe child restraints at the different levels will protect them from injury,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost crashes that occur \u2026 if a child restraint is in and it\u2019s installed correctly, children won\u2019t even get affected.\u201d<\/p>\n

While seat-belt and car-seat usage continue to be a priority, the Navajo Nation Department of Transportation has another issue to address.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur trend in this day and age is the cellphone and how people don\u2019t understand that just a few seconds with their eyes off the road can create havoc for them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

One billboard from NNDOT that\u2019s alongside Arizona State Route 264 says \u201cdistracted driving is impaired driving.\u201d<\/p>\n

This has been a new issue for NNDOT compared to decades-old issues like drunk driving which still accounts for 35 percent of all recorded crashes. However, road blocks and strict alcohol laws have aided in helping to reduce that number.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, impaired driving is still up there,\u201d Bowman said. \u201cAnother big one is speeding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The average speed of drivers on Navajo Nation roads is 85 mph. The average posted speed sign for the nation\u2019s roads is 55 mph and the highest it goes up to is 65 mph.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the school signs aren\u2019t being obeyed by (drivers). They\u2019re just flying through the school zones,\u201d Bowman said.<\/p>\n

The speed limit in school zones is 15 mph and they\u2019re no-passing zones, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation. New Mexico also enforces a speed limit of 15 mph in school zones.<\/p>\n

State highways on the Navajo Nation that have high volumes of traffic are where accidents most often occur said NNDOT.<\/p>\n

The three main causes for car crashes on the reservation are impaired driving, distracted driving and speeding, said Colyan Begay, program and project specialist for NNDOT.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll rotate off but they\u2019re consistently the top three,\u201d Begay said.<\/p>\n

The speed limits for roadways are determined by a number of factors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt usually reflects the number of turnout lanes,\u201d Begay said. \u201cOnce you get into, like, Ganado you have the businesses, the schools, everything. So, you have to slow traffic down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between 1999 and 2015, there were a total of 17,000 motor vehicle crashes on the Navajo Nation, which, on average, means there are at least three car accidents every day. Of those three accidents at least one includes a fatality or serious injury. On the reservation, 43 percent of car accidents include either a fatality or serious injury.<\/p>\n

NNDOT encourages everyone to drive the speed limit, drive defensively and be vigilant.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake responsibility. Drive safe,\u201d Bowman said. \u201cBecause someone, somewhere loves them a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY PAULY DENETCLAW NAVAJO TIMES WINDOW ROCK \u2014 For Norma Bowman, her job as the program manager for highway safety<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16667,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16665\/revisions\/16667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}