Road Safety: Seat Belt Use

Trinidad and Tobago introduced the law requiring seat belt use (safety belt use) in 1995 for front seat occupants, two years or older, in light vehicles. Road traffic fatalities have, however, continued to increase over the past decade as there has not been an increase in seatbelt use in the population. Seat belt use depends on the willingness of motorists to comply with the law and an understanding of how seat belts can protect them. Surveys conducted by the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, indicated that seatbelt use among motorists increased from 40 percent in1998 to 65 percent in 2003. The 2004 survey showed that although 87 percent of motorists agreed that seat belts were effective, only 50 percent actually wore their seat belts.

“Occupant ejection” is a phenomenon that occurs when a driver or a passenger is ejected from the passenger compartment of the vehicle by the force of a collision. Once an occupant is ejected from the vehicle by the sudden impact of a crash, he or she can be run over or crushed. The risk of a fatality increases over three times once a passenger has been ejected from the vehicle. Seat belts are critical as a defence against occupant ejection. Without use of seat belts, unrestrained occupants in a vehicle will continue moving once their vehicle has crashed into another vehicle, or a stationary object such as a wall or a tree. In collisions where occupants are using seatbelts, less than three percent of vehicle occupants will be ejected, without seatbelt use the likelihood of occupant ejection increases ten-fold.

In addition to occupant ejection there are other risks which seatbelt use reduces. Many fatal injuries occur when occupants of a vehicle collide with the windshield, the dashboard or the steering wheel after a crash. According to research by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), lap/shoulder seat belts reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passengers in cars by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent. For light-truck occupants, seat belts reduce the risk of fatal injury by 60 percent and moderate-to-critical injury by 65 percent. Wearing seat belts can double occupants’ chance of surviving a crash and more than double their chance of avoiding serious injury. Seat belt use enhances a person’s likelihood of surviving a potentially fatal crash.

A website with an interactive animation illustrating the effects of crashes at different speeds on the restrained and unrestrained occupants of cars involved in collisions can be accessed at:

http://www.bmweducation.co.uk/sots06/activities/icsCrash.asp

Other websites with activities on different aspects of road safety for children are:

http://www.learnanytime.co.uk/PHSE/Safety_on_the_roads_(1).htm

http://talesoftheroad.direct.gov.uk

References:

1. Trinidad Motorists’ Understanding of Safety Belt Issues, A Survey and Review, Dr. M. Mutabazi, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.
   http://caribbean.scielo.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0043-31442007000300008&lng=pt&nrm=.pf&tlng=en

2. NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts Research Note DOT HS 810 948, Characteristics of Unrestrained Passenger Vehicle Occupant Fatalities 16 and Older in Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes by Time of Day, U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
   http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810948.PDF

3. http://www.usroads.com/journals/aruj/9803/ru980302.htm

Written: March 2009