They want you to wear your seat belt, properly install your child's car seat, yield to pedestrians and slow down.
They don't want you on the road if you're drunk, tired or otherwise impaired.How can members of the Legislature's Traffic Safety Task Force get you to improve your on-the-road behavior? For one thing, they can propose that state lawmakers do what they're generally pretty good at - change the law.
The task force, set up by the Legislature earlier this year, met for the first time Tuesday. And while no decisions were made, many on the 18-member panel agreed changes in state law should be considered to motivate Utahns to protect themselves and others on the road.
There was general consensus, and testimony from the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Department, that traffic violators aren't being punished severely enough for their crimes. And as long as the penalty is light, it was suggested, drivers just aren't going to obey the law.
"There needs to be some consequences for that (traffic) citation," Deputy Sheriff Mike Leary told the panel. Paying a $40 or even $150 fine just isn't enough to convince motorists to follow the law. "We're finding there are no consequences in the court system."
Utah's seat belt law, too, could use some revision, members said.
Fourteen states now have standard seat belt laws, meaning drivers and passengers can be directly ticketed for not wearing a seat belt. It's against the law in Utah, too, but it's a secondary offense. Officers can't stop a car just to enforce the seat belt law. The driver or occupants have to be cited for something else first before a seat belt violation can be charged.
A standard seat belt law, lower speed limits, a public education campaign and traffic citations that pack a punch are aimed at altering personal behavior. Changes in the way roads are designed, including road widths and the placement of pedestrian crossings, also will be considered by the committee.
"We have done substantial good work through the engineering of our roadways and the engineering of our cars," said Craig Allred, director of the Utah Highway Safety Office and a member of the task force. "And I would like to say the behavior of our drivers, but I'm not sure that would hold true."
Statistics from the Utah Department of Public Safety's 1996 Utah Crash Summary indicate that engineers are doing their part. The death rate per 100 million miles driven has steadily fallen since that statistic was first compiled in 1940. It has plummeted from 13.25 deaths per 100 million miles in 1941 to 1.69 in 1996.
The actual number of traffic deaths and injuries in Utah has climbed, however. The number of vehicle accidents reported in the state increased 6.6 percent from 1995 to 1996. The number of fatalities increased from 325 to 328.
According to Allred, 75 percent of those killed in Utah traffic accidents in 1996 were not wearing seat belts. Of the survivors, 81 percent were wearing seat belts.
"It's very, very disturbing to look at the number of injuries that were preventable" he said.
And an alarming number of child safety seats - perhaps as high as 80 percent - are either not installed properly or are defective, the panel was told.
The task force of four lawmakers and 14 citizens will forward its recommendations, which could include proposed law changes, to the Legislature.