Safety on the Road
Article by Dr. John E. Kello
As a researcher, one of my earliest safety studies focused on automobile safety belt use. For the benefit of younger readers… there actually was a time when safety belt use was voluntary… encouraged, but not mandated. There was an even earlier time when belts were not available at all, and a time when they were optionally available only for certain new cars. While they have been widely available since the mid-late 1960s, mandated use came much later (in some states as early as the mid-1980s, in others as late as the mid-1990s).
So, in my early foray into safety research and consulting, I joined a team of experts who were developing the first-generation of the Behavior-Based Safety approach. One of our research projects on safety belt use started in the early 1980s, when my adopted state of North Carolina did not yet have a law requiring such use. We have had such a law for a while now, with primary enforcement for driver and front seat passengers, and secondary enforcement for rear seat passengers. For those who may not know, primary enforcement means you can be stopped and ticketed just for failure to buckle up; secondary enforcement means if you are stopped for some other reason, but also happen to be not buckled up, you can get an additional ticket for failing to do so. Relevant laws in other states vary widely, with all states now requiring that driver and front seat passengers be belted, some as primary enforcement and some secondary; some states require rear seat passenger restraint as primary, some as secondary, and some do not require rear safety belt use at all.
Current data for my state show that in the last few years there were around 1400 – 1600 traffic fatalities per year. Non-fatal injuries are estimated to be as much as 100 times that. About 20% of the fatalities were pedestrians, bicyclists, or motorcyclists, so safety belts were not an option for them. Of the roughly 1200 fatalities of drivers and passengers, then, more than 40% were not buckled up. Side-by-side with such statistics, the data show that in NC overall safety belt use is estimated at around 92% (that may be a low estimate for drivers and front-seat occupants… other data suggest that back seat use may be as low as 70%). But the 8% or so who do not obey the law and use their restraints contribute disproportionately to traffic fatalities.
In these days and times, knowing what we know, having heard all the public service announcements about safety belts, having learned all about it at school, with most cars buzzing or beeping until the safety belt is fastened, I ask myself (and you, dear reader): why on earth would anyone choose to drive or ride without the obvious and easy protection that safety belts provide?
In doing research for this article, I found a number of peculiarities in safety belt laws. My state of North Carolina grants numerous exemptions from the law. Quoting verbatim from the NCDOT:
The following exemptions to the law exist:
Vehicles not required to have belts. In general, these are cars made before 1968 and light trucks, vans, and SUVs made before 1972.
Drivers of noncommercial motor vehicles with a professionally certified medical condition or mental phobia preventing use.
Rural letter carriers and newspaper carriers while performing duties.
Frequently stopping delivery vehicles if speed between stops does not exceed 20 mph.
Vehicles with “Farm” license plates while being used for agricultural purposes in intrastate commerce.
Any occupant of a motor home, as defined in G.S. 20-4.01(27)d2, other than the driver and front seat passengers.
Backseat occupants of law enforcement vehicles while in custody.
Passengers of residential garbage or recycling trucks during collection rounds.
I must comment on the third point above. My neighborhood, while annexed to be a part of the town of Davidson, is not in the heart of our downtown area. It is a development, a couple of miles from town center, down a rural 2-lane road. Our mail deliverers use their own vehicles, and do not wear safety belts. They drive from the passenger seat (I am not making this up), unbuckled. I suppose that some controlling legal authority has decided that it is safer for them to drive from the right seat and stuff mailboxes from the right side of the road, rather than to stay in the driver’s seat (belted) and pull over to the wrong side of the road to stuff mailboxes. But as a safety guy, it still strikes me as odd and not safe.
NCDOT exemptions do not mention school buses (or any buses). Most states in the US do not require safety belt use on full-sized school buses (currently 42 do not, while 8 do), and most school buses (including the vast majority of those in NC) do not have such safety belts at all. So, children are appropriately indoctrinated in the legally mandated use of safety restraints in their parents’ cars and trucks, but the one vehicle in which they cannot use a safety belt is the big yellow “can of kids” that takes them to and from school 5 days per week, 9 months per year. I have heard the argument that school bus travel is safe, in that the buses are big and sturdy, designed differently than cars (“like giant egg cartons” to protect the kids), and after all very few fatalities occur (around 7-8 per year nationwide). Plus, it would be very expensive to retro-fit school buses. Cost-benefit would argue against it. OK, points taken. But of those few fatalities, how many would have been prevented by safety belts? And what if we look at non-fatal injuries? In the US as a whole, about 5000 students are injured each year in school bus crashes. The debate on safety belts in school buses continues.
Issues other than traffic safety have become “hot”. Especially visible today is the problem of the opioid epidemic, and more generally drug overdose deaths (more than 110,000 annually, with more than 75,000 of those deaths being opioid-related, especially due to fentanyl). The media attention paid to the opioid epidemic is well deserved. But, as I suggested earlier, back in the day there were lots of public service announcements on radio and TV encouraging safety belt use. Today, not so much. We seem to accept it as “normal” that upwards of 40,000 people die on our roads every year, and a large percentage of the victims were not using safety belts. I see occasional “click it or ticket” billboards. Plus, almost all vehicles now have air bags. But still, way too many people drive or ride unrestrained, and they are disproportionately represented in a group that no one wants to be part of, namely, fatal crash victims. The public service campaigns have done much good. So have the laws. Before the NC laws were enacted, safety belt use was estimated at 12-15% statewide. But while much higher now, safety belt use is still not 100%, despite the abundant evidence of the benefits of their use, and despite being required by law.
Maybe it’s time for those campaigns to be revived.
