Clark, Perdue, Arnold & Scott's Blog

You may not have realized that each time that you sign up for a credit card, subscribe to a magazine, make a catalog purchase, use a supermarket loyalty card, donate money to a charity or even fill out a product registration form, odds are that your name, contact information and the type of product or service to which you subscribed or purchased is entered into a data base by a business that will either use it to solicit further business from you, or rent the list to other companies that will do the same. This data is the source of the seemly endless junk mail that we receive in our mail boxes on a daily basis - a form of direct marketing that can be almost as irritating as the unsolicited call from a telemarketer.

According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse website, www.privacyrights.org, there are ways to substantially reduce the amount of junk mail that you receive. The following are examples of some of the steps you can take, but for detailed information on how and whom to contact, consult the website.

To remove your name from as many national mailing lists as possible, register with the Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) Mail Preference Service every five years to have your named placed on the "do not mail" list. Mail-in forms can be obtained from the site, or you can sign up online at www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglist.

Look for the name and address of the company distributing flyers and post cards near your mailing address, or for the company's phone number on the edge of the flyer and request that you be removed from its mailing list. The names and addresses of the major "resident" and "occupant" mailers can be found on the website.

Any mail order transaction is likely to be reported to the Abacus Alliance, the majority of whose members are catalogue and publishing companies that share information about their respective customers. You can opt out of the Abacus database by emailing optout@abacus-us.com. You will have to contact those companies that are not members of DMA or Abacus directly, and be sure to advise magazine companies at the time you subscribe that you do not want your information sold to other companies.

While credit bureaus do not disclose a person's financial information to marketers, they do rent lists. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires that they delete from mailing lists the name and address of any consumer that requests it. The names and contact information of the major credit bureaus can also be found on the website.

Since telephone books and reverse directories are other sources of information for direct marketers, consider obtaining an unlisted number, or request that only your name and phone number be printed. You can also ask that the phone company remove you from the reverse street-address directories.

“Change of Address” cards are provided to mailers who have your name and former address, including the major marketing and financial companies. In lieu of registering your change of address with the postal service, consider contacting your correspondents individually.

Beware of participating in sweepstakes and contests that do not give you an opportunity to opt out of mailing lists. The Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act requires that the mailer provide its name, address or toll-free number on the solicitation form so that the recipient or care giver can request to be removed from its mailing list.

Product registration cards that ask a variety of questions about your hobbies, income and the make-up of your household are usually not mailed to the company that manufactured the product, but rather to business that compile and sell the buyer profile information to other companies. If you decide to send the card, keep your receipt for warranty purposes and include only the minimum amount of information such as your name, address, date of purchase and the product's serial number.

The scanning of supermarket loyalty cards can link your purchases to your name. This information is then used by the store to send you coupons and special offers, or to sell to other marketers. You may want to think about not participating in the market's loyalty program. For further information about loyalty cards, consult www.nocards.org.

Request the major companies that compile consumer profiles from public records, telephone books, product registration cards and the like to remove you from their mailing lists. Their names and contact information can also be found at www.privacyrights.org.

Statistics indicate that school buses travel 4.3 billion miles each year in this country. School Transportation News (www.stnonline.com), the largest web site on pupil transportation, reports that approximately 475,000 yellow school buses provide transportation daily, and approximately 25 million elementary and secondary school children ride school buses twice a day on a daily basis, nationwide.

That being the case, and considering that they carry the most precious of cargos, why aren't safety restraints mandatory in school buses? While federal law now requires three-point lap/shoulder restraints on all newly manufactured small buses weighing less than 10,000 lbs., the same is not true for those that carry the most students--the larger buses that weigh 25,000, or more lbs. In 1987, New York became the first state to require a two-point lap belts system on new school buses. Only two other states, New Jersey and Florida, have since followed suit. California is currently the only state to require a three-point lap/shoulder belt restrain on large school buses.

The federal government considers traveling on a school bus during the normal school commute to be nine times more safe than traveling in other passenger vehicles. The National Safety Council maintains that the national school bus accident rate is 0.01 for every 100 million miles traveled, compared to 0.96 for other passenger vehicles. An average of 6 children are fatally injured inside a school bus every year

Safety experts attribute the safety to the size and design of the buses, such as the shock absorbing backrests and the compartmentalized seating. But if these buses are, indeed, the safest mode of transportation to school, why not make them even safer, asks such proponent groups as the National Coalition for School Bus Safety (www.ncsbs.org)? It heartily endorses combined lap/shoulder belts and encourages the use of lap belts over no restraints at all.

But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration points to studies that indicate that riding a school bus to school is safer than going on foot, by bicycle or in a parent's car. According to the NHTSA's Fatal Analysis Reporting System, approximately 600 school age children are killed annually while riding to and from school in other passenger vehicles--mostly automobiles.

A 2002 NHTSA study cautioned that while shoulder belts could provide some benefit, children are particularly apt to wear them incorrectly, such as under the arm, which effectively increases the risk of injury. Even school bus drivers have been heard to complain that seat belts would increase the risk of injury from children misusing them as weapons, or in horseplay.

And, of course, there is the issue of money. Opponents argue that making seat belts mandatory will only serve to increase the cost of transportation, without a corresponding increase in safety. In addition to the expenses of installing the safety belts themselves, a three point restraint would reduce the seating capacity and necessitate the purchase of more buses cites the 2002 NHTSA study. Driving up the cost of school bus transportation, it concluded, might well cause a greater number of injuries and deaths to children forced to find alternative means of transportation.

These seemingly logical arguments are fatuous. One avoidable death or injury to a child on a school bus is too many-particularly if that one child is yours. No parent should want to play the school buss lottery with their children, and given the high priority that we give to consumer safety in this country, there is no reason that they should.

We urge you to contact your state senator and representative and the enactment of a school buss seatbelt law in Ohio. To contact your state senator, go to http://www.senate.state.oh.us/. To contact your state representative, go to http://www.house.state.oh.us/index.html.