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Seat belt usage declines in North Carolina

INTRO – Seat belt usage declined last year in North Carolina. George Olsen has more.

Triple A Carolinas reports that North Carolina’s seat belt usage rate declined in 2012. The rate was 87.5%, compared to 89.5% in 2011. The 2012 rate was above the national rate of 86% which was up from 84% the year before.  The report notes that seat belt usage can reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45% and 60% in trucks. AAA says through the first half of this year, 41% of people killed in vehicle crashes in North Carolina were unrestrained… the same percentage as 2012. I’m George Olsen.

George Olsen is a 1977 Havelock High School graduate. He received his B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1982 where he got his first taste of non-commercial radio working for their student station WUSC. After graduation he worked about five years in commercial radio before coming to work at Public Radio East where he has remained since outside of a nearly 3-year stint as jazz and operations coordinator at WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the early 1990s. On his return to eastern North Carolina he hosted classical music for Public Radio East before moving into the Morning Edition host position and now can be heard on All Things Considered. He also hosts and produces The Sound, five hours of Americana, Roots Rock and Contemporary Folk weekday evenings on PRE Public Radio East News & Ideas, and is a news and feature producer for Public Radio East.