Higher seat belt use could prevent 65 serious injuries, deaths per day

A new study by the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that 1,652 lives could be saved and 22,372 serious injuries avoided on America’s roadways each year if seat belt use rates rose to 90 percent in every state.

The new report, based on 2007 data, also estimates that seat belts saved a stunning 15,147 lives that year. In the report, 38 states and the District of Columbia were below the 90 percent use rate, including Missouri, Kansas and Indiana.

“Wearing a seat belt costs nothing and yet it’s the single most effective traffic safety device ever invented,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

In Missouri, which had a seat belt use rate of 77 percent, an additional 85 lives could have been saved and 1,003 serious injuries avoided that year. At the 90 percent use rate, there would have been 44 fewer deaths and 446 fewer serious injuries in Kansas, which had a 75 percent use rate. The decreases in Indiana, where nearly 88 perecent of drivers were using belts, would have been 15 fewer deaths and 194 fewer serious injuries.

With a national use rate of 83 percent in 2008, one of five Americans still fails to buckle up regularly, and the rate is even worse for younger drivers. Of the 4,540 16- to-20-year-old passenger vehicle occupants killed in 2007, 2,502 were unbelted at the time of the crash, about 55 percent. Their use rates were worse at night: 65 percent of teens killed in crashes were unbelted.