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ITD Mailbox

Thanks for Western Idaho Fair highway safety booth

ITD Director Brian Ness

The Idaho Division wants to extend our appreciation to ITD for partnering with us to support the highway safety booth at the Western Idaho Fair this year (Aug. 20-29). The highway safety booth was staffed during the fair with the goal of educating the public on various highway safety issues and increasing seat belt use. Currently, the belt usage rate in Idaho is approximately 78 percent, down from the high in 2006 of 80 percent.

As in previous years, a booth in the Expo building was shared with the Division of Motor Vehicles. The Highway Safety side of the booth focused on highway safety. Volunteers distributed highway safety information and gave demonstrations on the importance of being properly restrained. This involved putting two or more raw eggs in a “Barbie” car, buckling one in a seat belt and crashing it into a wall. The demonstration typically resulted in the unbuckled eggs being broken and the restrained egg surviving the crash. The point was made that we need to be properly restrained to avoid unnecessary injury and death due to motor vehicle crashes.

Volunteers for the highway safety booth came from ITD, FHWA, Idaho Traffic Safety Commission (Jim Pline), Idaho Coalition for Motorcycle Safety, Boise Police Department and the Nampa Police Department. Ping Yerby from the Office of Highway Operations and Safety was especially helpful in staffing and finding volunteers to work in the booth. Maureen Gresham, Margaret Goertz, Kelly Campbell, Lisa Losness and Alisha Spoor were very helpful in staffing and preparing materials for the booth. We also want to extend a big thanks to the Division of Motor Vehicles, especially Barry Takeuchi, for assistance in staffing the highway safety booth. The DMV covered some of the shifts we were not able to fill.

With the participation of all the volunteers, we reached an estimated 2,400 people and broke 1,260 eggs. A number of people that visited the booth expressed their gratitude for the highway safety materials and the effective seat belt demonstration.

We appreciate ITD’s efforts in dedicating resources to improve highway safety and willingness to partner on highway safety activities.

If you have any questions, please contact Lance Johnson at 334-9180 extension 124.

Peter J. Hartman
Division Administrator