1. Report No.

DOT HS 809 921

2. Government Accession No.

3. Recipient’s Catalog No.

4. Title and Subtitle

Safety Belt Use Estimate for Native American Tribal Reservations

5. Report Date

September 2005

6. Performing Organization Code

7. Author(s)
W.A. Leaf and M.G. Solomon

8. Performing Organization Report No.

9. Performing Organization Name and Address

Preusser Research Group, Inc.
7100 Main Street
Trumbull, CT 06611

10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS)

11. Contract or Grant No.

DTNH22-99-D-25099
Task Order 7

12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address

U.S. Department of Transportation
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
400 Seventh Street, SW.
Washington, DC 20590

13. Type of Report and Period Covered

Final Report
August 2000 – December 2003

14. Sponsoring Agency Code

15. Supplementary Notes
The Contracting Officer's Technical Representative for this project was Dr. Linda Cosgrove.

16. Abstract

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Indian Highway Safety Program, sponsored a project to (a) establish the first baseline tribal reservation safety belt use rate, and (b) develop a methodology to use in the future to track trends and specific program effects. The planned sample included 18 reservations with 150 sites on these reservations. However, the Navajo reservation in the Southwest, which has 22 percent of the total Native American population, did not permit safety belt observations to be made in its territory. Ultimately, data were collected from 120 sites on 16 tribal reservations. Safety belt use was observed between September and November 2004 on 15 reservations and in February 2005 on one reservation. Overall, 44 percent of the vehicles were cars, 31 percent were pickups, 14 percent were SUVs, and 10 percent were vans. Fifty-eight percent of the drivers were male, 38 percent were female and the sex of 3 percent could not be determined. Fifty-three percent of the passengers were female, 37 percent were male, and the sex of 10 percent of the passengers could not be determined. Belt use could be coded for 90 percent of the drivers and 83 percent of the passengers. For the tribal reservations subject to tribal law and tribal traffic law enforcement, excluding the Navajo, the overall safety belt use rate was 55.4 percent. There was a very high variation in belt use across reservations, ranging from a low of 8.8 percent to a high of 84.8 percent. Nine tribal reservations had primary safety belt laws; in them, 68.6 percent of vehicle occupants were belted. By comparison, three tribal reservations had secondary belt laws; they averaged 53.2 percent belt use. For the four tribal reservations with no belt use law of any kind, only 26.4 percent of the vehicle occupants were belted. NHTSA is funding two initiatives to raise reservation belt use: a Law Enforcement Liaison to promote emphasis on belt law enforcement and a demonstration program to develop strategies for grant solicitations for occupant protection programs on Native American Tribal Reservations. The methodology developed here will be crucial in evaluating improvements due to these and other initiatives.

17. Key Words

Seat belt, Safety belt Belt use rate, Native American, Primary belt use law, Section 157, Secondary belt use law

18. Distribution Statement

  Document is available to the public through
the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, Virginia 22161

19. Security Classif. (Of this report)
Unclassified

20. Security Classif. (Of this page)
Unclassified

21. No. of Pages

22. Price