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By Jennifer Gentile
Daily Times Leader
An audience of Clay County officials and public safety personnel thought about the number 50,000 Tuesday.
The number is slightly less than the number of soldiers killed during the Vietnam War and roughly equal to the number of seats in a large sports arena.
As the audience learned at the Clay County Courthouse Tuesday, it’s also the number of people who are killed each year in automobile accidents, and according to many officials, many of those fatalities are preventable.
Automobile safety, particularly the use of seatbelts, was the main topic during a countywide safety meeting at the courthouse. Risk Management Director Kenneth Sandifer led the program on behalf of Mississippi Public Employees Workers’ Compensation Services.
According to Sandifer, “There are only two things that cause accidents — unsafe actions and unsafe conditions.” Actions, or what the speaker called “the human factor,” accounts for about 80 to 90 percent of accidents.
“It’s us,” he said. “We are our problem.”
Locally, he continued, “The county could be doing a lot better, but it could be doing a lot worse” in the area of workplace safety and compensation claims.
“Considering the number of employees,” he said, “you all are doing really well as far as frequency (of incidents).”
Sandifer brought a training video, which featured former Highway Patrol Sgt. Jack Ware speaking about automobile safety.
“These training videos are not trying to tell you how to do your job; you know how to do that already,” Sandifer assured the audience. Rather, he said his intent was to foster awareness.
In the video, Ware described a number of fatal car accidents — some involving people he knew and others he’d seen during his tenure in law enforcement. The victims would have probably walked away with their lives if they had been wearing a seat belt.
Ware encouraged viewers to look around the next time they’re in a large baseball or football stadium and to observe how many thousands of people were around them.
“That many people are going to die every year (in car accidents),” he said. “Honest to God, that’s mind-boggling.”
One man he knew, who had a background in car racing, felt he didn’t need to wear seatbelt. According to Ware, he’d said he would live to be 100.
Three weeks after making that statement, the man’s neck was shattered in a car accident and he was killed.
Another of Ware’s acquaintances, “a police friend,” died in a broadside collision. The former highway patrolman refuted the idea that wearing a seatbelt is a bad idea, or could even prove fatal, in a broadside collision.
“His 200-pound partner didn’t wear a seatbelt,” Ware said. The victim incurred five impacts during the crash, four of which were preventable.
Had everyone been wearing a seatbelt, according to Ware, his friend would have been injured, but he would have lived.
Putting the matter into perspective further, Sandifer said that every 13 minutes in the United States, someone dies in a car crash.
“I want my county employees going home in one piece,” he said, noting that traffic accidents are the leading cause of employee injuries.
Clay County Chancery Clerk Robbie Robinson said Sandifer would be returning to the county to complete an on-site survey of safety practices. By participating in the safety program, Robinson said the county saves 5 percent, or $4,000, on its annual insurance costs.
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