Sioux Empire Safety Village

Bumbo Baby Seat Recall

The popular Bumbo baby seat is being voluntarily recalled because babies have fallen out of them fracturing their skulls.  About 4 million of the seats have been sold in the U.S.  More than 100 incidents of babies being injured by falling out of the baby seats have been reported in the U.S. 

If you have a Bumbo baby seat stop using it until you get a free repair kit.  Don’t return the baby seat to the store.  The recall is not pulling the product off the market but adding a safety feature…basically a seat belt.  Owners of Bumbo baby seats should go to www.bumbousa.com to get the free repair kit.

To safely use the Bumbo baby seat:

 -always use the restraint belt

-only use the seat on the floor or level ground surface

-never use on elevated surfaces such as chairs or tables

-never leave the child unattended

-never use the seat in or near water

Remember a baby’s head is his heaviest part of his body.  When he loses his balance, his head often hits the floor first.

4th of July Deadliest Day on U.S. Roads

As we hit the road to celebrate the birth of our nation, who would think this is the most dangerous day of the year to be on the road?  But according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety the 4th of July is just that.

As we warn our teens to be careful with fireworks and around water add to the list driving.  Teens make up nearly 10 percent of the 4th of July fatalities.  We all know about the dangers of drinking an driving, but another contributing factor to teen crashes is texting while driving.  Research funded by the Allstate Foundation shows that 49 percent of teens report that texting is their biggest distraction behind the wheel.

Of course, it’s not just teens.  In 2010, more than 3,000 people died in crashes that involved distracted driving with another 416,000 injured.  Distractions range from eating to talking on a cell phone to passengers in the vehicle.  It’s amazing how much a small distraction increases your risk for a crash.  Here are some examples: Reaching for a cell phone increases your risk for a crash by nine times.  Texting increases your risk by 23 times.  Taking your eyes off the road for five seconds at 55 mph is like driving the length of a football field blindfolded.  One text behind the wheel equates to four beers (.08 blood alcohol level).

Please do your part to keep our roads safe this 4th of July.  Don’t text and drive and don’t drink and drive. 

Have a happy and safe Independence Day from the Sioux Empire Safety Village.   

Argus - USA Today story features Safety Village type driving simulators

An article this weekend in the Argus Leader from the USA Today hailed the virtues of Interactive driving simulators from Virtual Driver.  These are the same simulators used by the Sioux Empire Safety Village located at the W.H. Lyon Fairgrounds in Sioux Falls.

As pointed out in the article one of the great features of the simulators is that drivers learn consequences of driving while drinking or texting.  The drivers not only experience what it’s like to drive impaired and while texting using their own phone, but once things go awry the police show up on the video, they take you to jail or maybe the hospital, and you go to court.  You find out how much it’s going to cost you financially and how long a drunk driving charge stays on your record.

While these machines weren’t really meant to be mobile, the Sioux Empire Safety Village has figured out how to make them so.  We’ve been taking our three simulators to schools in Eastern South Dakota for a little more than a year.  More than 2,600 students have experienced Simulated Reality.  We work with the schools and local law enforcement to make this happen.  A simulator will be available to fair goers during the Sioux Empire Fair Aug. 4-12, if you want to try your hand at it.

For a look at the USA Today article, we have it posted on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/siouxempiresafetyvillage

Boxelder Job Corps Students learn consequences of driving drunk and texting.

Students at Boxelder Job Corps got a taste of what it’s like to drive drunk and text and drive, but they weren’t really on the road or drinking and driving.  Instead they were learning the consequences of risky driving by participating in Simulated Reality, the virtual reality driving simulator program operated by the Sioux Empire Safety Village.  Dave Renli, Executive Director of the Safety Village, took one of the Safety Village’s three simulators to the Job Corps for a week.  This is the first time the simulators have been in the western part of South Dakota.  To understand how the simulators work, you almost have to try them out yourself.  The next best thing is to watch it being done.  That’s why I’m including a link to a story done by KEVN out of Rapid. http://www.blackhillsfox.com/2012/06/13/New-simulator-mimics-distracted-driving The simulators have been in use for a little more than a year now and have been a big hit.  Mainly we take them to schools.  More than 3,000 people have “Experienced the Reality without the Reality” while driving the simulators.  If you are interested in scheduling the simulators, please contact us at (605) 334-7233.  

Dell Rapids After School Program visits Safety Village

Sixty children from the Dell Rapids after-school program spend Friday afternoon learning about home, fire and poison safety at the Sioux Empire Safety Village on the W. H. Lyon Fairgrounds.

The kids were pretty quick to catch on to the fact that liquids can look a like and mistaking one for another can be deadly. They noticed how similar popular cleaning products look to juices and other drinks such as Gatorade. They talked about the importance of keeping cleaning products in secure areas where children and pets cannot reach them.

The children toured the Power of Fire, a burned house, to learn about fire safety in their homes.  They talked about smoke detectors and having a home fire escape plan.  The importance of sleeping with your bedroom door closed and keeping low to the floor if here is a fire were also discussed.

In the Safe House, the children learned how to keep their bedrooms, bathrooms and baby’s rooms safe.  They now know to keep all pillows and stuffed toys out of cribs, to secure rugs to the floor with double faced tape, and to keep electrical appliances away from water in the bathtub or sink.  That’s just a few of the things the kids shared with each other after watching power point presentations in the Safe House.  They opted to listen in English, but had the option of 16 different languages.

It was a busy afternoon, but one filled with learning and fun at the Sioux Empire Safety Village.

Driving and Bicycling Safety

Driving and Biking Safety

Recently a most unfortunate incident happened just outside of Sioux Falls. Though details are still sketchy it appears that three young people were struck and injured while riding their bikes on a gravel road. Our thoughts and prayers are with these families and we sincerely hope for a speedy recovery.

More on the story can be found at:

www.safetyvillage.org/tips/listing.php 

Distracted Driving: How big is the problem?

• In 2009, more than 5,400 people died in crashes that were reported to involve a distracted driver and about 448,000 people were injured.¹
• Among those killed or injured in these crashes, nearly 1,000 deaths and 24,000 injuries included cell phone use as the major distraction.¹
• The proportion of drivers reportedly distracted at the time of a fatal crash has increased from 7 percent in 2005 to 11 percent in 2009.¹
• When asked whether driving feels safer, less safe, or about the same as it did five years ago, more than 1 in 3 drivers say driving feels less safe today. Distracted driving—cited by 3 out of 10 of these drivers—was the single most common reason given for feeling less safe today.³
• A recent CDC analysis examined the frequency of two major distractions—cell phone use and texting—among drivers in the United States and seven European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom). Results of the analysis included the following findings:⁷

http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Distracted_Driving/index.html