The National Safety Council gives South Dakota and ten other states an F for its efforts to reduce preventable deaths from accidents. We rank #46 (ahead of Montana, Wyoming, Mississippi, Idaho, and Missouri), due to a lack of policies NSC recommends for road safety, home and community safety, and workplace safety, including…
- Road Safety
- ignition interlock for all first-time and repeat DUIs
- 90+ day license revocation for testing above .08 BAC or refusing test
- children in hot cars law
- texting ban for all drivers
- seat belts on school buses required
- motorcycle helmets
- Home and Community Safety
- CPR required for high school graduates
- universal background checks and waiting periods on firearm sales
- safe storage law for firearms
- sprinkler system requirements in homes
- fall prevention strategies and education for older adults required
- buprenorphine available to treat opioid and heroin use disorders
- carbon monoxide detectors required in homes, schools, and lodging
- Workplace Safety
- state/local employee OSHA coverage
- state workplace violence law
- drug-free workplace law
- workplace wellness law
By NSC’s standards, the safest state in the neighborhood is Minnesota, which gets a C and ranks #13. The National Safety Council grades hard: no state gets an A. The safest places, drawing Bs, are Maryland, Illinois, Washington DC, Maine, Oregon, Connecticut, California, and Washington state.
Not to mention no “primary” seat belt law/requirement. Two more dead on I-90 not wearing seat belts. How much more “freedom” can we stand ??
Why am I not surprised SD gets another F and always in the cluster of failing states with SD is Mississippi. 40 years of Pub control, and how’s that workin’ out for ya, SD?
Do you believe it is the government’s role to keep every person safe from every possible hazard?
How much are you willing to surrender for this feeling of safety?
Every, MC? “Every” person and “every” hazard? Why speak in terms of absolute? That’s a misdirection. How about “many” people and “many” hazards? How much are you willing to change to help people other than yourself?
Where do we draw that line?
How much do we put on the government and how much do we put on individual responsibility?
If the government doesn’t do it, you can bet korporate amerika isn’t going to. Working stiffs are entitled to and demand safe work environments. ka screams profits. Which voice do you think what passes for a congress will pay attention to?
Rep. Clark … Are you saying you don’t know your duty or job description as a Congressperson?
Mike from IA, Who is being forced to work in unsafe environment? Last time I checked we ended slavery some time ago. What are we calling unsafe work environment?
You want the government to do for you what you are not willing to do for yourself. If you believe an environment is unsafe, tell someone, if nothing is done then quit. Keep in mind there are are no jobs that are 100% safe. You have to be willing to accept some risk in exchange for a paycheck.
I have left jobs before, simply because, the other employees had know Idea what they were doing. I left before some some got hurt. The fact remains the final call was mine and mine alone to make. I don’t want the government to take my right walk, away.
MC, your observation
seems inconsistent with your statement
Can you name a single existing or proposed safety regulation that takes away an employee’s right to walk away from a job?
66000 coal miners work in unsafe mines.
Migrant farm labors work in fields that are being sprayed or recently have been sprayed.
Packing plants have all kinds of dangers. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/12408159/ns/business-us_business/t/dangers-tensions-lurk-meatpacking-industry/
Driving taxis is dangerous. What about stress and overwork as air traffic controllers?
Farmers and ranchers are under constant threat of injuries through equipment, livestock, chemicals, etc.
Being Black civilians in major cities is a true hazard that the present government wants to make more dangerous for civilians and less accountability for law enforcement.
The only non-stressful job seems to be gerrymandered red state pols who are nearly assured of re-election.
Silly me, I thought our government was supposed to protect us from enemies-foreign and domestic. Our government has taken the role of protecting korporate amerika’s profits at the expense of the working population and consumers.
SD has very weak DUI laws, which we would do well to strengthen. There is good data and cost savings which support the first two items listed:
ignition interlock for all first-time and repeat DUIs
90+ day license revocation for testing above .08 BAC or refusing test
Honestly, there are many evidence-based strategies we CAN and should adopt to reduce DUI. If only the legislature considered evidence-based policy over politics and industry influence…
To the first person to tout the strategically ambiguous industry tag line of ‘drink responsibly’ – let us remember that responsible drinking starts with responsible selling – and we can certainly do better in that area.
Matt W, do we have weak DUI laws or is it that sentencing is weak. I don’t see that our judges in SD are very consistent in sentencing. I am certainly against drinking and driving but if the laws are watered down in the judicial process, will tougher laws do anything?
Greg, you’re absolutely right. It’s actually both. Weak DUI laws and inconsistent sentencing. As evidenced in many other states, tougher laws and data-driven alcohol policy has been shown to dramatically reduce DUI. This often includes revisions to sentencing guidelines.
There are two ends of the continuum around harmful substances- prohibition and commercialization. The goal of good policy is to find a place somewhere in the continuum where the commercial side works and negative externalities (public safety, etc) are mitigated. To that end, we can learn a lot from our troubled history trying to find optimum balance with alcohol, tobacco and opioids.
In challenging MC’s comment about walking, Bearcreekbat neatly identifies one of the fallacies in MC’s approach to this topic. MC tries to portray the safety grade NSC offers as some call for absolute safety, boundless regulation, and complete removal of freedom. NSC offers a report card listing a finite number of safety issues that can be dealt with by statute. I don’t favor all of them—for instance, I would need some convincing that requiring sprinkler systems in all new single-family residential construction is worth the cost—but I can recognize they are still a limited set of recommendations. For example, NSC calls for mandatory bike helmets but only for children.
MC’s other fallacy is in his first comment, when he speaks of safety as a “feeling.” Not that “feelings” don’t matter, but safety isn’t just a feeling; it is a count of people who die in accidents, spouses and siblings and friends who would still be alive if someone had taken better precautions.
Matt and Greg’s discussion of DUI laws (and those are at the top of NSC’s list) is a good example of how safety isn’t just a feeling. We know drinking and driving leads to lots of death, injury, and damage. We have made concerted efforts through law and social pressure to get people not to drink and drive. We don’t just want to feel safe on the highway; we want everyone to get home alive. Even in pursuit of that safety goal, I think we go too far in some regards—sobriety checkpoints allowing cops to detain every driver are unacceptable, as are forced catheterization and blood tests—but consistent restrictions on alcohol use and consistent punishments for drinking and driving are worth doing.