Driving through Downers Grove, a suburb of Chicago, I pulled over for a fire truck coming down the street. As I waited for the truck to pass by, I checked to see if the crew was wearing seatbelts. Sure enough, I saw red! The bright red seatbelts strapped across the turnout gear of the officer and on the driver made me smile.

Red seatbelts were added to the 2003 edition of NFPA 1901, Automotive Fire Apparatus, in an effort to make sure seatbelt use by firefighters could be verified easily. According to one source, the next update of NFPA 1901 most likely will offer red or bright orange seatbelts for quick seatbelt checks.

In its February 2006 issue, FIRE CHIEF published a seatbelt poster of crew members from the Colorado Springs Fire Department who survived a rollover because they were wearing their seatbelts. The poster was sponsored and distributed by Rosenbauer of America. In the past year, almost 67,000 seatbelt posters have been distributed across North America.

Has this poster made a difference? In one case it has.

Last spring, Coldstream Station District Chief Launie Fletcher of Middlesex Centre, a township just outside London, Ontario, Canada, posted the poster in the fire station. The chief looked at the poster and decided to start wearing his seatbelt — even in his personal vehicle.

A couple months ago, Fletcher was in an accident, and from the looks of the photos, his Chevy pickup truck tried to wrestle with a tree and the tree won. Fletcher called Brian Innis of Resqtech, his Rosenbauer dealer, and thanked him for the seatbelt poster again. The chief said the seatbelt poster saved his life. He has since attached a photo of his own crushed truck to the seatbelt poster as an extra reminder.

Fletcher was lucky in more ways than one. For some people it takes more than a picture of rollover survivors to get them to buckle their seatbelt, it takes losing a member of their department or family to learn that seatbelts can save lives.

I don't know if you read the USFA's Firefighter Fatality reports, but firefighters continue to die after being ejected from fire apparatus and personal vehicles. You also should check out FirefighterClosecalls.com.

Charlie Dickinson, acting director of the U.S. Fire Administration, recently addressed a group in Illinois. He expressed outrage that two firefighters were ejected from vehicles and killed because they were not belted in. He pointedly told the officers in the audience, "If you'd rather be a friend, get in the jump seat, not in the front seat!"

If you don't have the FIRE CHIEF/Rosenbauer seatbelt poster in every one of your stations and in every apparatus area, e-mail Mike Harstad at Rosenbauer America for copies of the poster.

Why do I keep harping on this? ("There she goes again....") Because it's still happening and it's just plain stupid. No excuses — none! Shut up and buckle up. When we can go a year with no firefighters killed or injured from not buckling up, I'll shut up.