If the booths at the SAFE KIDS Day at Washington Park in Casper Saturday were judged by name alone, "The Convincer" would surely win.

The dozens of booths in the park's baseball diamond, swarmed by hundreds of kids, ran the gamut from drug education to advice on how to properly fit a bicycle helmet.

And then there was the Wyoming Highway Patrol's "Seatbelt Convincer."

First Kendra Schell, 17, the "convincee," sat in a car seat mounted on a ramp and buckled the seatbelt. Trooper Chris Schell, her father, then gave a brief lesson on positioning the belt along the shoulder and below the abdomen.

Then Trooper Schell pushed a button that operated a conveyor belt, which drags the car seat up the ramp. When the seat reached the top - zoom - down Kendra went at 7 miles an hour. The seat crashed into the bottom of the ramp but Kendra was safe because she wore her seatbelt.

"It's actually really fun and it's really convincing too," Kendra said.

Most of the booths had a single point, directed more at children than adults, like "wear a helmet" and "wear your seatbelt," and the kids seemed to get the picture.

After seeing two members of the Kelly Walsh Key Club demonstrate what happens to the family not wearing seatbelts in a toy car collision, Kohl Tlustos, 7, was sure about how to be safe.

"You always wear your seatbelt," he declared confidently.

The adults in attendance learned their lessons about safety, too. In places, the recurring safety messages seemed to promote parental anxiety, though at least one parent rejected that idea.

"It makes me more aware of what I have to keep an eye on," said Jennifer Paris, who had come to get a few new bike helmets for the kids.

Paris, by the way, smartly dressed her four children in bright red t-shirts for easy identification.

Many parents also waited for hours in their vehicles, in a line about half a mile long, for free car seat inspections.

Under a law that Highway Patrol officers will begin enforcing on July 1, children under 8 and under 80 pounds must have a booster seat to ensure proper seatbelt position. Children under 8 who weigh more than 80 pounds are exempt.

In many places, however, the booth operators targeted children while letting the parents alone.

Natrona County Sheriff training coordinator John Becker gave out gun safety books to children advising them to "Stop! Don't touch, leave the area, tell an adult," if they came upon a gun.

Becker was also selling universal gun locks to parents. But absent from the gun safety message was the suggestion that children are safest from gunplay accidents in houses that have no firearms at all.

Becker said firearm abstinence was not the point of the demonstration.

"We're just trying to get these kids to grow up and be healthy adults" through safety education, he said.