CIGARETTES IN CAR
For your passengers, there is no escaping
I am usually a live-and-let-live kind of person. However, when I read the March 4 Letter of the Day from the father whose justification for smoking in his car is that "most of the smoke is sucked out the window," I had to cry baloney.
I grew up driving in a car with a smoking parent, and I spent hours upon hours trying to adjust the windows so more of the smoke would go out her window instead of straight into my face.
I'm telling you from experience: It was torture. In the house, I had the option of going outside or upstairs, but in the car, there was no escape.
ERIN COOPER, ST. PAUL
BUCKLE UP OR PAY UP
Pure and simple: Seat belts save lives
Minnesota is considering giving law enforcement officers the authority to stop and ticket drivers for not wearing their seat belts. As an emergency nurse and as president of the Greater Twin Cities chapter of the Emergency Nurses Association, I routinely see what happens when people who aren't wearing seat belts are involved in crashes. And I know that laws encouraging drivers and passengers to wear seat belts do save lives.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, last year there were 504 passenger-vehicle fatalities in Minnesota, and 186 of those were people not wearing their seat belts.
There is nothing more heartbreaking than telling a fearful parent, spouse or child that the person she or he loves more than anything in the world has died. It's all the more devastating when I know that the death could have been prevented if the victim had been wearing a seat belt.
There's no denying it -- seat belts save lives.