A seat belt is also called a safety belt and is a belt that is designed to protect commuters in an automobile. A seat belt offers security to individuals in an automobile in case the automobile stops abruptly or is involved in a collision. Motor vehicles accidents remain the leading cause of death for individuals below the age of 34 years in the United States. It is also the third cause of death for all the deaths that occur within a year. When vehicles get involved in collisions, individuals who are most affected are the occupants. About two-thirds of the deaths that occur on highways in a year affect those who occupied the vehicles involved in the accidents. It is estimated that if individuals could wear seat belts properly, about forty percent of the deaths that affect front seat auto occupants could be saved. However, over eighty percent of Americans wear them because it is illegal to fail to wear one when in a vehicle.
The process of using safety belts began in 1984 when Elizabeth Dole- the secretary to the US Department of Transportation- came up with a rule requiring all new cars to be equipped with some means of protecting passengers by the year 1990. The rule was followed were all cars that were produced by the specified period contained seat belts and airbags. The anticipated results were not felt with many drivers still at risk for various reasons. Many drivers do not see the importance of fastening the safety belts and rarely comply with the seat belt laws. For the law to be effectively followed, the process of identifying those who do not comply with the law is not enough. Those who follow them today could change and assuming that they will always follow the laws would be wrong. Such factors reduce the safety that the seat belts were expected to bring.
On the 1st of December, 1984, the New York safety belt law was put in effect and it started being applied at the beginning of the month that followed. The law was seen to have an effect within the very first month in that the number of fatalities experiences the first month that followed its application was reduced compared to the number of fatalities experienced the same month a year before. The number of fatalities experienced the month that followed its application was also less compared to the average number that was experienced the same month five years ago. However, it is important to note that other factors could have contributed to the reduction in fatalities in addition to the use of the safety belts. These factors could include the amount of driving, changes in weather, the behaviors of the drivers, and many others. This is to say that the reduction of fatalities cannot be purely attributed to the use of the belt laws. The effectiveness of the use of the belt laws should be estimated so that the importance of their use is obtained. This will help know the seriousness that should be used when enforcing the laws. This paper will seek to analyze the effects of the belt law that was enacted on December 1, 1984, on fatalities and injuries. Other factors that might affect the efficacy will be held constant.
Occurrence of Fatalities and injuries
Most of the factors that affect the occurrence of injuries affect the number of collisions. The high the number of collisions, the high the number of fatalities and injuries expected. Some factors that may affect fatality regardless of the use of the seat belts or not include the speed of collisions, the number of passengers in the vehicles that are involved in an accident, the crashworthiness of the vehicle, and the viability of the individuals involved in an accident to injury. All these factors will affect the number of fatalities experienced. For example, one accident affecting two vehicles carrying a very high number of passengers colliding at a high speed may lead to more fatalities and injuries that involve several collisions affecting several vehicles carrying few individuals.
The use of safety belts does not affect the behaviors that cause collisions. Some accidents are caused by careless driving, driving when one is drunk, and failure to follow road laws, text messaging while driving, and others. The use of safety belts cannot affect these factors that contribute greatly to accidents. Research that has been conducted previously indicates that the use of seat belts does not affect the number of collisions. Since the use of the seat belt law does affect the number of collisions that occur at a specified period, the injuries that cyclists, pedestrians, and other individuals not occupying the vehicles involved in collisions experience will not be affected by the use of the safety belt laws. In determining the efficacy of the seat belt law on fatalities and injuries, such individuals cannot be included because they do not use the safety belts.
Data Collected
To determine the effects of the safety belts use, the observation method of collecting data was used. The data for twelve Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas in New York State was obtained. For comparison purposes, data were collected for different periods. The data collected between September and November 1984 was used to signify the fatalities and injuries experienced before the application of the safety belt rules. The data collected between March and May 1985 indicate the effect of the use of the seat belt law shortly after it the laws were affected. In addition, data for four of the standard metropolitan statistical areas was collected between December 1984 and February 1985. The data for the middle months in the specific periods were used. Obtaining data was supervised by Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research so that there were no biases. The counts for injuries and collisions were obtained from an arm of the New York State Department of motor vehicles by the name of the governor’s traffic safety committee. Twenty-eight observations were made and any observation was classified as fatal, severe, moderate, or light. All the injuries that were reported and those that were not reported were considered, it was noted that accidents falling under the category of fatalities were reported correctly while those where there were no injuries were likely to go unnoticed. Serious injuries also had the possibility of being reported. The assumption made was that those injuries that were not reported due to their minorities were approximately the same across the standard metropolitan statistical areas meaning that the effect on all the areas is the same. In addition, these injuries are minor and could not count on the usage of the seat belt.
To construct a measure of occupant viability to injury, the characteristics of individuals in the vehicle are used. Characteristics such as the age of occupants, current acute injuries, and distribution of chronic conditions are used. The extent of the impacts of the collisions to the different individuals in the vehicle is compared to the characteristics above. The construction of such a measure was not as much important because the variations of average susceptibility to injury might not vary within a given area for a specified period. There are also high chances that the susceptibility will not vary across different areas within a given period. Other factors that could behave like the susceptibility to injury are the average number of passengers and an average number of crashworthiness which might not vary a lot within a specified period over the metropolitan areas. These factors will barely affect the use of seat belts due to their limited chances of causing injuries.
A factor that will have an impact is the speed at which collisions occur. The speed at which collisions will occur in summer may be different from the speed at which it will occur in winter in a given region. The speed at which collisions occur may also vary across metropolitan areas. When individuals are driving on limited-access roads, they tend to move at higher speeds than they could do if they were traveling on a residential road. This is likely to affect the speed at which collisions occur if they happen to collide. Vehicles are also driven slowly if the roads are slippery and if the traffic density in a given road is quite high. This is likely to reduce the speed at which collisions take place. Notably, the spring season greatly affect the speed at which collisions occur.
Statistical Methods of Analysis
The Poisson distribution was used to come up with a model of the number of injuries during the three months. The Poisson distribution is appropriate because the assumptions made in the traffic injuries well fit into it and they represent a given time interval. There is only one variable in the poison distribution which could be used to represent the number of injuries in a given metropolitan area. The number of injuries that occur within three months will depend on factors such as seat belt usage, population density, the corresponding number of collisions, and amount of snowfall. The Poisson distribution is usually effective if the frequency of occurrences is low. It is therefore expected to work effectively for fatalities because the frequency for fatalities is quite low. This is to means that the standard error for fatalities using Poisson distribution will be minimal. The Poisson distribution may not be very effective for non-fatal injuries and continuous approximation will be used to ensure that the final results are realistic. A least-squares regression model was used as a test hypothesis for the research. The injury counts and collision counts were variables assumed to depend on each other. All other variables in the model were assumed to be independent in determining the effects of seatbelts on fatalities and injuries.
Results
The research done reveals that individuals used safety belts during the first few months because the law required them to do so. The rate of safety belt use fell with time. Some of the factors that affected the use of the belts by occupants in vehicles include the level of enforcement and the attitudes of the members of the public. The use of seat belts is seen to reduce the number of severe injuries to less severe ones and the less severe ones to even less. The number of fatalities is seen to change greatly downwards. For the case of light injuries, the change is not as great as the one seen in fatalities because some severe injuries are reduced to less severe ones and instead of causing fatalities, they cause light injuries. The use of seat belts is therefore seen to reduce more moderate injuries than the light ones.
Table 1. Belt usage Across the State during the period from 1985 -2005
The results show that belt usage increased from 1985 to 2005. This applied to both express and surface ways. As a result, the percentage of passenger fatality decreased over the years. Safe drivers are likely to use safety belts voluntarily than less safe drivers. This is to means that they will follow the safety belt legislation more readily than those who are less safe.
I would like to explore the possible effect or transfer of risk of fatalities using the following variables.
- Expressway – Refers to roadways that have limited access.
- Surface streets – consist of all other types of roadways.
- Primary laws – Laws that stipulate that the occupants in a vehicle can be ticketed for failing to use the seatbelt.
- Secondary law – Law stipulating the occupants be stopped for other violations other than safety belt non-use.
The table below gives a summary of safety belt usage for the period ranging from 1985 to 2005. The illustration depicts individuals who reported to nearly always or always using seatbelts.
Table 2: safety belt usage for the period ranging 1985-2005
From the table above, a significant proportion of individuals use the safety belt. Safe belt usage is more amongst the females as compared to the males. In addition, the usage rate is high amongst individuals aged 65 and above. The white and non-Hispanic individual represents the highest proportion that uses or nearly uses safety belts.
Discussion
The results that were obtained were compared with the results that had been announced by the New York State officials. The results obtained as a result of the application of the seat belts during the beginning of 1985 were compared with the ones released by the state officials for the beginning of the previous year. The results were also compared to the average results for the same period in the last five years. The results reveal that the benefits of the use of safety belts have been appreciated. As a result, the degree of passenger fatality in the US has declined over the years. According to the results by the officials, the results obtained after the application of the legislation reveals that only forty-eight people had been saved from death compared to the number of deaths caused in collisions the previous year. Compared to the results obtained in the average of the previous five years over the same period, the use of safety belts only managed to save one hundred and twenty-one lives. The driving conditions experienced in the first six months of 1985 were quite harsh compared to the conditions experienced during similar periods the previous year and the average of five years ago. This could have contributed much to the fatalities experienced during the period.
More realistic estimates on the usage of safety belts and the averted injuries need to be made so that the level of enforcement needed is established. Enforcement of the legislation will ensure that the highest number of injuries that can be saved is achieved.
The data that was used for this research was collected within a limited period and the number of areas involved was also small. The results obtained could therefore represent a small effect as an introduction but detailed research could reveal the real effects of using the safety belts on fatalities and injuries. The estimate made from the results obtained reveals that an increase in safety belt usage to about fifty percent could help save over four thousand live in the United States in a year. The estimate obtained using Poisson distribution and the one obtained using the least-squares regression model was similar in showing the effectiveness of using seat belts. The number of deaths prevented experiences the greatest percentage reduction compared to the percentage of injuries prevented. This is because some collisions that could lead to death lead to severe or moderate injuries. On the other hand, some collisions that could have led to severe injuries lead to moderate or light injuries.
The trend continues to the point where a collision that could have led to a moderate or light injury leads to no injury. In effect, the percentage change in the severe, moderate, and light injuries will be less compared to the fatal percentage change.
Conclusion
The initial effects of the application of the safety belt laws in New York State were not as great as they were expected. The laws were expected to greatly reduce the number of fatalities and injuries experienced every year as a result of collisions. This is because the safety belts could reduce the collisions between occupants and the inner parts of vehicles. The immediate effects of the use of seat belts were that within the very first month, the number of fatalities reduced. The use of safety belts to reduce fatalities is also affected by other factors such as the amount of driving, changes in weather, the behaviors of the drivers, and many others. The occurrence of injuries goes hand-in-hand with the number of collisions experienced. In addition to the use of safety belts, other factors that may affect fatality include the number of passengers in the vehicles that are involved in an accident, the crashworthiness of the vehicle, and the viability of the individuals involved in an accident to injury. Data used to establish the effect of the seat belt law was collected by the method of observation. The Poisson distribution and the least square regression model were used for analysis. Individuals initially used the safety belts because the law required them to do so. The results reveal that the use of seat belts reduced the number of severe injuries to less severe ones. The research established that the effect of the use of safety belts is underestimated. If the laws could be enforced so that the percentage of individuals using safety belts increased to about sixty percent, more lives would be saved and more severe and moderate injuries could be prevented.
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