Washington, May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Was it coincidence that the U.S. Department of Transportation chose the day after Mother's Day to announce its ``Click It Or Ticket Mobilization'' -- an initiative that turns the government of the most powerful nation on earth into the nosiest Mom the world has ever known?

The mobilization through the end of the month will spend tens of millions of dollars and deploy government resources at every level, from federal bureaucracies to local police departments, to force drivers to buckle their seat belts.

Seat belts? Indeed. Terror may rattle the globe. The economy may wilt. Crime rates may embark on an ominous resurgence. But an entire class of professional Safety Moms in Washington -- government officials and private safety advocates who have gravely taken responsibility for keeping their fellow citizens from acting stupid -- will not rest until every driver is tightly cocooned behind the wheel.

At 75 percent, says Chuck Hurley, vice president of the National Safety Council, ``the U.S. has the lowest safety belt use rate in the developed world. The next lowest is Canada, at 93 percent.''

The Moms' goal: Make the U.S. like Canada.

Americans will be thrilled.

Beyond Sesame Street

The Safety Moms' mobilization engages every technique of modern governmental persuasion. Like all such campaigns, it evokes ``America's kids,'' on whose behalf it is ostensibly waged.

The sing-songy motto ``Click It or Ticket,'' pitched to a generation whose intellectual development ended with Sesame Street, nicely reinforces the point that America's drivers, for the sake of our kids, must be treated like children, too.

Thus the Moms have commissioned an expensive campaign of television and radio advertising, complete with a soundtrack of spooky voiceovers and unnerving hip-hop. Local police will conduct ``checkpoints and saturation patrols,'' monitoring motorists and ticketing those who dare go about unbuckled. And the Safety Moms will lobby lawmakers in Washington and in state capitals to pass ``primary'' seat belt laws.

Primary vs. Secondary

Primary laws make seat-belt use mandatory and let cops stop motorists on suspicion of non-compliance. They are an alternative to ``secondary'' seat-belt laws, which permit cops to ticket the unbuckled driver only when he's been stopped for other traffic violations.

Secondary laws have been in force in every state for a generation, a relic of that long-ago epoch when primary seat- belt laws would have been considered a frivolous expansion of the government's police powers. Now 18 states have primary laws, and the Moms are hoping for many more.

``Some people object to primary laws,'' Hurley told me last week. ``We're paying a very high price for it.''

The Moms' argument rests on the assertion that mandatory seat-belt laws could save lives -- 500 lives for every 2 percent increase in seat-belt use, according to their suspiciously precise and mysteriously calculated estimate.

Of course, the relevant questions about life-saving are how it is done, and at what cost. We could save even more lives with a mandatory 35 mph speed limit.

Fatalities Decline

Traffic fatalities, per mile, are a fraction of what they were 50 years ago, for multiple reasons: better roads, safer cars, fewer drunk drivers -- and greater use of seat belts. Yet the cause-and-effect evidence is complicated.

Last year, for example, according to the American Automobile Association, U.S. seat belt use had its highest single-year increase in eight years. At the same time, traffic fatalities rose to their highest level since 1990, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

No complication will deter the Moms, however. If fatalities had decreased last year while seat belt use increased, they could cite the fact as evidence that we need more mandatory seat-belt laws. But since fatalities increased even as seat-belt use increased, the coincidence is used as evidence that -- well, you know: we need more mandatory seat-belt laws.

Air Bags

There are other reasons the Moms do not inspire confidence. Their last great project, you'll recall, was to make air bags mandatory in passenger cars. This was hailed as a great victory for safety until it was shown that air bags had an unexpected side effect on ``America's kids'': they tended to decapitate the little fellows.

To correct this unforeseen outcome, governments augmented the air bag mandate with new rules about what passengers can sit where in private automobiles. Either way, when the Moms get involved, government mandates grow and the sphere of private decision-making shrinks.

The goal of perfect safety meanwhile remains elusive, as it must. If nothing else, this means the Moms will never be out of work. Lon Anderson, a spokesman for the Mid- Atlantic AAA, was telling me last week about his organization's energetic lobbying for primary seat-belt laws.

``But now that we've made air bags mandatory,'' I asked, ``why do we need seat belts? Aren't they redundant?''

His voice rose an octave.

``Are you serious?'' he said in exasperation. ``Are you kidding? Do you know what an air bag does? An air bag is an explosion in the closed passenger compartment of an automobile. This thing exerts nearly a ton of pressure as it inflates.''

``Jeez,'' I said.

``Exactly,'' he said. ``You need the seat belt to protect you from the air bag.''

Last Updated: May 20, 2003 00:05 EDT