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Buckle Up America!

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Section I

Introduction:

The Case for Buckling Up

 

 

 

 

Seat belts are the most effective means of reducing fatalities and serious injuries in traffic crashes. Seat belts are estimated to save 9,500 lives in America each year.

   Seat Belts Save Lives

Carolyn Hanig is an Oklahoma life flight nurse who was called to a mass-casualty incident involving several motor vehicles. As the helicopter flew over the crash scene, the flight crew could see several victims lying about, already receiving medical attention. Carolyn and her partner went to assist a badly injured young man who was receiving CPR in an ambulance. As she moved in to help, Carolyn froze as she recognized the young man’s shoes. They belonged to her 17-year-old son, Nik, who was an unbelted back seat passenger in one of the vehicles. His injuries were grave and he did not survive.

Based on her firsthand experience at the site of many terrible crashes, Carolyn had done everything she could think of to teach Nik the importance of wearing a seat belt—she had even made him visit the hospital room of a young man who became a paraplegic after a crash in which he wasn’t wearing a belt. With all that knowledge, however, Nik still wasn’t wearing his seat belt on that day. A front-seat passenger who was buckled in walked away with only minor cuts and bruises.

Carolyn joined with the local coalition supporting a standard enforcement bill that faced vocal opposition. She took her story to lawmakers and to Governor Frank Keating, who promised Carolyn she would make a difference. At the end of Oklahoma’s 1997 legislative session, the legislature sent the Governor a standard enforcement bill. When he signed it, Oklahoma became the 13th state, plus the District of Columbia, to have a standard enforcement seat belt use law.

This manual is dedicated to all the Carolyn Hanigs of the world who turn their grief into triumph by telling their stories, no matter how painful, and working to make the highways of America safer for all of us.

  The Highway Safety Problem

It’s a fact: On America’s roads, someone is killed every 13 minutes and someone is injured every nine seconds in traffic crashes.

It takes only a few seconds to fasten a seat belt. Yet this simple action, repeated every time you get into a motor vehicle, may be the most significant driving-related behavior change you can make to extend your life. The "buckle up" habit dramatically increases your chance of surviving a crash. It’s your best weapon against a drunk, tired or aggressive driver.

Despite recent advances—safer highway design, new auto safety devices, reductions in impaired driving and improved seat belt use rates—traffic crashes are still the leading cause of unintentional death in the United States. According to the National Safety Council, only diseases like cancer, heart disease and stroke kill more people than do motor vehicles. Each year, approximately 42,000 Americans die in traffic crashes and another three million are injured. Sadly, many of these deaths and injuries could have been prevented if the victims had been wearing seat belts or were properly restrained in child safety seats.

Over the past decade, highway fatalities and injuries have declined. One vital reason for this decline is that more motorists are wearing their seat belts. Research has found that lap/shoulder belts, when used properly, reduce the risk of fatal injury to front seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent (for occupants of light trucks, 60 percent and 65 percent, respectively).

Most of those who die in motor vehicle crashes are vehicle occupants (less than a quarter are motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians). Seat belts, air bags and child safety seats all have been designed to protect drivers and passengers from injury during a crash. We know they save lives when used correctly, but the seat belt use rate in America is only 69 percent.

  Trends in Seat Belt Use

Seat belt use was very low, only 10-15 percent nationwide, until the early 1980s. Due in part to the passage of seat belt use laws in 31 states, belt use increased from 14 percent to 42 percent from 1984 through 1987. From 1990 through 1992, belt use rose from 49 percent to 62 percent, attributable, in part, to a national effort of highly visible seat belt law enforcement and public education.

Unfortunately, since that time belt use has risen only slowly, and some states have struggled to maintain seat belt use at current levels. Between 1993 and 1997, the national observed seat belt use rate increased just 3 percentage points, from 66 percent in 1993 to 69 percent in 1997.
 

 

Seat belts and child safety seats help prevent injury five different ways:

1. Preventing ejection.

2. Shifting crash forces to the strongest parts

of the body’s structure.

3. Spreading forces over a wide area of the body.

4. Allowing the body to slow down gradually.

5. Protecting the head and spinal cord.

 

How Motor Vehicle Crash Figures Compare with Crime

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U.S. Seat Belt Use Rates 1983-1997

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The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, passed by Congress in June, 1998, authorized an incentive grant program to help states increase seat belt and child safety seat use.

 

The program reinforces the Buckle Up America strategy and provides grants to states who adopt and strengthen seat belt and child safety seat use laws, conduct high visibility enforcement, and establish education programs (See Appendix C).

   Buckle Up America

Goals

In the Buckle Up America campaign, unveiled in 1997 by the U.S. Department of Transportation, national goals were established for seat belt use. These goals are:

  • Increase national seat belt use to 85 percent by the year 2000
  • Reduce child occupant fatalities (age 0-4) by15 percent by the year 2000 (from a total of 653 in 1996)
  • Increase national seat belt use to 90 percent by the year 2005
  • Reduce child occupant fatalities (age 0-4) by 25 percent by the year 2005

  Benefits of Meeting National Seat Belt Goals

Although highway deaths and injuries have been declining in recent years, that decline has slowed. Increasing seat belt use would mean further reductions in deaths and injuries, as well as reductions in the related economic costs to society.

Meeting the national goals and increasing seat belt use to 85 percent would:

  • prevent an estimated 4,194 fatalities annually
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  • prevent an estimated 102,500 injuries annually
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  • save approximately $6.7 billion annually
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    Increasing seat belt use to 90 percent would:

    • prevent an estimated 5,536 fatalities annually
    • prevent an estimated 132,700 injuries annually
    • save $8.8 billion annually

    These economic cost savings result from reduced productivity losses, property damage, medical costs, rehabilitation costs, legal and court costs, emergency services costs, insurance administration costs, premature funeral costs, traffic delay and costs to employers.

       We Know What Works:

       The Four Strategies

    The Buckle Up America campaign consists of the following four-point strategy to reach the goal of 90 percent seat belt use by 2005 and a 25 percent reduction in child passenger deaths:

    Point 1 - Enact strong legislation.

    It is imperative to adopt standard enforcement seat belt use laws (also referred to as "primary" enforcement laws—see box on this page, "Terminology") and to close the gaps in child passenger safety laws in all states. Police officers should be able to write a citation whenever a seat belt violation is observed, whether or not the driver has committed any other traffic infraction. Child passenger safety laws should cover all children up to age 16 in every seating position.

    Point 2 - Build public-private partnerships at the local, state and federal level.

    The goal of increasing safety belt use is too big for any one group or agency to accomplish alone. But, working together, we can achieve higher use through stronger laws, visible enforcement and public education and information. Partnerships or coalitions can set the tone in a community, workplace or organization, and the media can help spread the message that healthy, safe families are properly buckled up. There are many successful coalitions and partnerships to use as role models; the agencies and organizations listed as resources in Appendix D can provide help.

    Point 3 - Conduct active, high-visibility enforcement.

    Experience has shown that, after seat belt use laws are passed, belt use increases quickly. But without active, high-visibility enforcement, it soon drops again. Belt laws must be visibly enforced the way other traffic laws are (red light running, speeding, etc.). In addition to increasing belt use and reducing crash injuries, high-visibility enforcement results in a measurable reduction in crime (one third of criminal apprehensions occur as part of traffic stops).

    Point 4 - Expand effective public education.

    It is critical to educate the public about the benefits of seat belt and child safety seat use. Public education may include a broad range of activities such as enforcement campaigns, promotional events and community-based initiatives. These efforts are most effective when they are well planned and coordinated and use a simple message that is repeated many times in different ways.

    Savings By U.S. Seat Belt Use

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    Terminology

    Different terms are often used to mean the same or similar things. Here are the definitions used by

    the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:

    Standard enforcement and primary enforcement both are terms that mean a seat belt or child passenger safety citation can be written whenever a law enforcement officer observes an unbelted driver or passenger.

    Secondary enforcement means a citation can be written only after a law enforcement officer stops the vehicle for another traffic violation.

    Seat belts and safety belts both refer to the lap belt or lap-shoulder belt occupant restraint device.