One thing that you should not have to see is the death of your son, daughter or loved one because of an accident. No parent expects to see their child die before them. I previously wrote that in Alabama, we are the fourth highest in Teenage Deaths. I discussed in another post which is the Anatomy of a Teen Car Accident that a teenage driver adding one teenage passenger increases the risk of a FATAL ACCIDENT BY 48%. I pointed out in Teenage Death that wearing a seatbelt reduces a person’s chances of dying in a crash by forty-five percent and being injured by fifty percent according to traffic safety researchers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I’ve also previously written about what it’s like to lose a family member when they die from an accident.
I’ve written before about teenagers are at a high risk of being in an accident and seriously injured. Climbing into the back of a truck or jeep in the cargo area and riding without a seatbelt is extremely dangerous. (The last case I worked on over thirty years ago as a law clerk was a paraplegic case where the rider in the back of a truck was thrown out of the truck during an accident. The wreck was due to a defect in the truck. The client was paralyzed from the waist down. Don’t ride in the back of a truckbed, jeep, or any vehicle where there is not a seatbelt!)
So, how do you talk to your children in a way that helps them use seatbelts instead of forgetting about them when they ride with friends? An excuse you are likely to hear from them if you catch them getting into a vehicle like the back of a jeep or not putting on a seatbelt is that they were just going to go a short distance. Taking a concept from Dave Frees’s book, The Language of Parenting: Building Great Family Relationships at all Ages, is to state things in a positive manner as opposed to stating it in a negative manner. The idea is that if you tell your teenager not to think of the color blue, they (and you) cannot help but think of the color blue. So, you might say to them, “To keep safe, put on your seatbelt” or “Can you imagine feeling good by the keeping yourself safe when you always put on your seatbelt? Dave goes into detail on this in his book in Chapter 9.
No one should have to see the death or serious injury of a child, spouse or loved one. There is action you can take. Can you imagine how good you will feel stating things in a positive way so that your family members respond and are safe? Doing that shows your love for them, doesn’t it?
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“Seven Deadly Sins That Can Wreck Your Alabama Injury Claim” for more in depth information.
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