February 2019 Newsletter

February special: 10% off dog bite-pet safety orders of $200+

-Jamie and the I'm Safe Team

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety released their 16^th Annual Roadmap of State Highway Safety Laws for 2019. Across the five safety categories, including CPS, over 20% of states were falling behind in implementing their recommended safety laws*. Only five laws meeting the safety criteria included in the report were passed in 2018; however, three of the five enacted laws were states updating their rear-facing safety seat requirement to at least age two.

*Note, the Advocates recommend and grade some of the CPS laws based on a rear-facing seat requirement until at least age two, which is different from the revised AAP guidelines released in August 2018. For more on the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety alliance, click here.

Do you have a CPS event or ongoing outreach programs that you need materials for? Have a sponsor? Need state specific material? Call Jamie at 877-669-7233, ext 206 for more information on how you can customize our products.

A NY Times article shows that driving is actually contributing to worsening health in numerous ways, including anxiety and long-term exposure to the exhaust of your fellow commuters. If that doesn’t make you want to find another, safer way to get to work than driving alone in your car, consider that over $100 billion is wasted in fuel and lost time.
 

On the other hand, pedestrian fatalities have increased by 35% in the last decade according to Smart Growth America's 2019 Dangerous By Design report. The combination of recent reports and studies suggests that a complete overhaul to our transportation infrastructure is needed to truly fix many problems. Until then, safety education not only increases awareness of best practice, but also awareness of the issues. 

You can use our materials to educate and reach potential advocates by customizing with contact information, logos, sponsor information, state-specific laws and more (as possible). 

Notorious for being one of the 'tobacco states', even Virginia is looking at increasing the age required to purchase nicotine products. Smoking may be unpopular among teens, but vaping (using electronic cigarettes) is up almost 80%. Vaping may well help long-term smokers quit, but it does nothing good for kids who would never have smoked, but are now addicted to the nicotine. Johns Hopkins Medicine has a quick overview with their 5 Truths You Need to Know About Vaping.

While e-liquids may come in fun flavors that increase the likelihood of young people vaping, there are other inhalants that are so awful, they are barely discussed. But even younger kids are trying things like huffing freon or keyboard duster for the cheap high they have easy access to at home. 

Inhalants Awareness & Poison Prevention Weeks are next month. We have some educational materials to keep adults aware and to help kids make the smart choice about inhalants, which are often the same poisons we kept them from as younger children.

Even for those aware of the destruction that opioids have wrought over the past several years, the results of a study published in JAMA is shocking: nearly 9,000 teens and children have died from overdoses in just two decades. For more insight, visit this article. Or, you could read the entire study.

How do young people get addicted to opioids? One study strongly suggests that dental surgery is a serious contender for blame. A study of 15,000 teenagers and young adults showed that, within one year, just under 7% had obtained an additional prescription for opioids after their initial one for dental surgery and almost 6% were abusing opioids. Of those who didn’t get an initial prescription, only 0.1% had obtained one within the next year and 0.4% had been diagnosed with opioid abuse.

Help begin the conversation about the dangers of medications and poisons with younger children, with our I’m Safe At Home activity book. 

There are about a million reasons why we really should unplug ourselves and our kids (anxiety, depression, exhaustion, social awkwardness, etc), but we follow them up with a million and one excuses why we can’t. From sundown on March 1^st until sundown on March 2^nd, join others in celebrating the National Day of Unplugging. Maybe when you realize you don’t really need your cell phone, it will make it easier to put it down while you are driving.