TRAVEL BRIEFS

MILWAUKEE

Harley-Davidson Museum hosts Evel Knievel exhibit

The Harley-Davidson Museum is hosting an exhibit on motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel.

Wednesday marked the 35th anniversary of his Wembley Stadium jump in London, where he crashed and broke his back while trying to jump over 13 buses.

"True Evel: The Amazing Story of Evel Knievel" will run from July 10 to Sept. 6.

Among the items there will be his signature leathers and cane, personal photographs and letters, and the half-motorcycle, half-rocket "Skycycle" used to jump the Snake River Canyon. Artifacts will be from Harley-Davidson and the Knievel family.

Knievel, who died in 2007, often used the Harley-Davidson XR-750 and was sponsored by the company in the 1970s.

Knievel's oldest son, Kelly, will be at the museum July 17 to talk about his father.

SALT LAKE CITY

Road work at Zion park
to close east entrance

Major road work starting June 7 will shut down Zion National Park's east entrance at times.

The national park says the Mount Carmel Junction Road will be closed weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. until Oct. 28.

It's the first major reconstruction since state Route 9 was built in 1930.

The $6 million federally funded project will involve milling and grading the roadway down to its original elevation, compacting the road base, shoring up the historic retaining walls, providing drainage for groundwater and repaving.

Zion park, meanwhile, was planning the first in a series of prescribed burns late Tuesday to rid areas of cheatgrass and other exotic weeds. The burns are planned for small plots of three to 20 acres.

WASHINGTON

Government: About 45 million Americans don't buckle up

The government estimated Monday that 45 million Americans are not buckling up in their cars, a poor habit that factors into thousands of highway deaths every year.

The Transportation Department released its estimate of seat belt use as it kicked off the annual "Click It or Ticket" campaign. The department said 84 percent of motorists wore their seat belts in 2009, an all-time high, but that still left millions of unbelted Americans on the nation's roads. Eighty-three percent were buckled up in 2008.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said an average of 38 unbelted people a day are killed in motor vehicle crashes. In 2008, nearly 14,000 motorists not wearing seat belts were killed in motor vehicle crashes. Half could have been saved if they had buckled up, he said.

Statistics compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that those least likely to buckle up are teens and young adults, males, nighttime riders, motorists traveling on rural roads and motorists riding in pickup trucks.

Among states, Michigan led the nation with 98 percent of its motorists buckling up, followed by Hawaii with 97.9 percent, Oregon with 96.6 percent and Washington state with 96.4 percent. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia had a seat belt use of 90 percent or better.

Wyoming had the lowest rate in the nation with 67.6 percent, followed by New Hampshire with 68.9 percent and South Dakota with 72.1 percent.

Massachusetts, which had the nation's worst seat belt rate of 66.8 percent in 2008, showed the largest improvement, raising its belt rate to 73.6 percent. Kentucky also made strides, improving to 79.7 percent in 2009, compared with 73.3 percent in 2008.