KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – A new survey confirms that additional lives could be saved “if seat belt use rates rose to 90 percent in every state.”
The survey, from the U.S. Department of Transportation, found that 1,652 lives could be saved annually. In addition, 22,372 serious injuries could be avoided. The DOT released the survey results earlier this year as part of its “Click It or Ticket” nationwide enforcement campaign.
“Wearing a seat belt costs nothing and yet it’s the single most effective traffic safety device ever invented,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a news release. “We want to let the American people know that by failing to wear your seat belt, you not only risk serious injury or death, you also risk getting a ticket.”
An estimated 83 percent of people nationwide use seatbelts, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) National Occupant Protection Use Survey 2008 federal data.
Seatbelt use among teens is low at night, according to NHTSA. Roughly 65 percent of the 16-to-20 year olds who died in a nighttime wreck were not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash. A total of 4,540 16-to-20 year olds were killed in 2007, and 2,502 were not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash, survey data shows.
“Young people often think they’re invincible,” LaHood said. “Yet like everyone in a passenger vehicle, they’re tremendously vulnerable in the event of a crash.”
