Background States with primary belt laws allow police officers to stop a vehicle for the sole purpose of ticketing drivers and front seat passengers for not wearing their safety belts. On the contrary, police officers in secondary belt law States are not allowed to stop and ticket drivers for lack of belt restraints as a main reason for stopping a vehicle. In 2003, average belt use was estimated to be 83 percent in the States with primary laws and 75 percent in the States with secondary laws. Although many efforts have been made in the past by various States' officials, political leaders, campaign participants, safety belt use coalitions, etc. to enact primary belt laws, only 20 States have been successful as of 2002. Some of the secondary belt law States have made exemplary efforts in the last few years to enact primary belt laws. There were many attributed factors involved in the attempts to secure passage. Two major obstacles, that played an important role in the States' failures to enact legislation, were personal freedom and racial profiling.

ObjectiveSince each State has its unique history with regard to political structure, seat belt legislation, public's perception and behavior on safety belt laws, a thorough understanding of the factors that encourage or discourage individual States from enacting primary belt laws will be identified and analyzed.

Proposed Approach Case studies will be conducted from representative States with the following status: 1) primary law for more than 10 years, 2) recent upgrade to primary law, 3) secondary law with no attempts to upgrade, 4) repeated attempts to upgrade to primary law. These case studies will be conducted through interviews with law enforcement officials, lawmakers, public relation specialists, traffic safety professionals, and community activists. The evaluation may require 2-3 years, depending on the extent of data collection.