Safety officials encourage federal workers to buckle up

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration wants all federal employees to buckle up when they are traveling on government time, and on Wednesday officials sent a Labor departmentwide memo to drive home the point.

Assistant Labor Secretary John Henshaw said more than 30 percent of all occupational injuries are related to motor vehicles. Seat belts, he added, greatly reduce fatalities in accidents.

The effort stems from Executive Order 13043, which was issued in 1997 to promote seat belt use among federal employees. Wednesday's memo is part of a joint effort by OSHA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to reinforce the executive order. The campaign began last month at the National Safety Congress in New Orleans.

"Although most of these state laws require most drivers and front seat passengers to use seat belts, Executive Order 13043 requires all federal employees occupying any seating position in a motor vehicle on official business whose seat is equipped with a seat belt to have the seat belt properly fastened at all times while the vehicle is in motion," the memo stated.

Henshaw admitted that seat belt use is "an area we haven't focused too much on." He noted, however, that seat belts reduce fatalities by 45 percent in accidents, and by 60 percent in accidents with trucks or sports utility vehicles. Because of these statistics, OSHA is pushing an outreach program that will encourage agencies to educate their employees on the benefits of buckling up. Henshaw emphasized that the campaign is not to enforce the executive order-"There is no citation or inspection effort," he said-but rather to promote safety and serve as an example to the private sector.

He lauded the Defense Department for their work in the area.

"The Defense Department has been pushing seat belt usage," Henshaw said, "probably because they realize they lose valuable people in traffic accidents."

Because of the size of the government and the federal workforces, Henshaw believes an effective education program could save many lives and protect government property. OSHA officials could not provide statistics on how large the effort will be or how much it would cost, but Henshaw expects it to be significant.

"Obviously, you know what the size of the federal workforce is," he said.

OSHA officials will help agencies to share outreach tools that prove to be useful.

"What we are looking at is the largest group of people we can influence, the largest fleet we have control over," Henshaw said. "Based on this, it would be a great example for the private sector on how to reduce fatalities and injuries from motor vehicle crashes."