Rewarding safety

Buckle up and win a pick-up truck? In an effort to increase seatbelt wearing in Manitoba, the province's public motor vehicle insurer has begun holding an annual contest to reward drivers “caught” with their belts buckled. Police issue entry forms during road checks, a more pleasant thing to receive than the $66 fine for not wearing a seatbelt. Despite nearly two decades of mandatory seatbelt use, Manitoba Public Insurance officials are frustrated that only 86% of local motorists buckle up regularly, the lowest usage rate among Canadian provinces. Still, that is considerably higher than the US average of 62%. The 1997 winner of a brand new pick-up truck donated by a local dealer was someone who has seen the results of ignoring the law—she's an ambulance attendant and traffic safety instructor (Winnipeg Free Press, November 1997).

Editor's note: Is anyone evaluating the impact on seatbelt wearing rates of this novel initiative?

New items on NISU web site

New items have been added to the web site of the National Injury Surveillance Unit (NISU), at the Research Centre for Injury Studies at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. The full texts are also published on paper.

• Spinal cord injury, Australia 1995/96 (the first statistical report of the new national register of spinal cord injury)

• Injury Issues Monitor #11 (NISU's rebirth as part of Flinders University, information on the 2nd National Conference on Injury Prevention and Control (February 1998, Melbourne), and other news)

• Injury Deaths Australia, 1991–95. (Counts and rates for the most recent five years available, aggregated in various ways. Pick what you are interested in and the page will produce a table.)

Visit the site at http://www.nisu.flinders.edu.au/welcome.html and go to the “what's new” section. Take a look, and let NISU know what you think.

Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Product Safety Research

The European Consumer Safety Association (ECOSA) and the Departament de Sanitat …