Most seat belt laws in the United States are left to the states and territories. However, the first seat belt law was a federal law, Title 49 of the United States Code, Chapter 301, Motor Safety Standard, which came into effect on January 1, 1968, requiring that all vehicles (except buses) be equipped with seat belts in all designated seating positions. [1] This law has since been amended to require three-point seat belts in outdoor positions and finally three-point seat belts in all seated positions. [2] Initially, seat belt use was voluntary. New York was the first state to pass a law requiring vehicle occupants to wear seat belts, a law that went into effect on December 1, 1984. New Hampshire is the only state that does not have enforceable laws for wearing seat belts in a vehicle. [3] SOURCE: IIHS, 2014d. an Arkansas rewards the use of the belt by reducing the fine for the main violation by $10. b This state assesses the points for this violation. In Georgia, the maximum fine is $25 if the child is between the ages of 6 and 18. Massachusetts drivers can be fined $25 for violations of the Belt Act itself and $25 for every unbridled passenger between the ages of 12 and 16. He New York will only evaluate points if the passenger is under 16 years of age. The South Carolina Police Department is prohibited from enforcing seat belt laws at checkpoints designed for this purpose.
However, seat belt offences may be issued at driving licence checkpoints and registration points to drivers named for other offences. g Tennessee drivers 18 years of age and older who choose not to dispute the quote will pay a $10 fine by mail or $20 for drivers aged 16 and 17. h Wyoming rewards the use of the belt by reducing the fine for the main violation by $10. L. Beck and West, 2011, used data from the 2008 Nationally Representative Behavioural Risk Factors Surveillance System (FSRO) survey to compare seat belt use. They found that 88.2 percent of adults living in states where seat belt laws are primarily enforced reported always wearing a seat belt, compared to 79.2 percent in states with secondary laws. Differences in seat belt use existed in some socio-demographic categories, but use rates were higher for each group in states where seat belt laws were primarily enforced. In the first four months the law was in effect, 6,667 seat belt tickets — and 13,000 warnings — were issued, according to state police. The most common basis for challenging estimates of the benefits of seat belts is risk compensation and risk homeostasis, developed by researchers John Adams and Gerald Wilde. The idea behind this theory is that if the risk of death or injury from a car accident is reduced by wearing seat belts, drivers will respond by reducing the precautions they take against accidents. Adams accepts the hypothesis that wearing seat belts improves the chances of the occupant of a vehicle surviving an accident.
[43] To explain the discrepancy between the agreed improvement in accident survival and the observed results, Adams and Wilde argue that protection from the consequences of risky behaviour may tend to lead to greater risk-taking. Wilde explains, “Forcing a person to use protection against the consequences of dangerous driving, as seat belt laws do, means encouraging dangerous driving. A fine for non-compliance will encourage seat belt use, but the fact that the law does not increase people`s desire to be safe promotes compensatory behaviour. [ 44] By 2009, despite a sharp increase in population and vehicle numbers, the number of road deaths in Victoria had fallen below 300, less than a third of 1970 levels, the lowest on record and well below the per capita rate in countries such as the United States. This decline has generally been attributed to aggressive road safety campaigns, starting with seat belt laws. [39] [40] L. Beck and West, 2011, also reviewed occupant injury data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System – All Injured Program (NEISS-AIP) from 2001 to 2009. The data are at the national level and do not allow comparisons between states with and without primary enforcement of seat belt laws, but show a 15.6% decrease in the violation rate, from 1,193.8 violations per 100,000 inhabitants in 2001 to 1,007.5 in 2009. During this period, 14 other states passed primary seat belt laws. In addition to the lack of state-specific data, no information is available on other injury-related factors, such as. B, the use of seat belts or seating belts, and only injuries reported in hospital emergency rooms are included, which would likely underestimate the number of injuries. Regardless of your gender, driving without a seat belt is dangerous.
Hollister asked members of the House Insurance Committee to speed up cars at General Motors` Milford test ground to show them how scary vehicles can be. They wore seat belts but always shouted to be let out of the cars. “I had bruises all over my chest and stomach in the form of a seat belt. The power would have gotten me through the windshield,” she said. Several versions of the bill have been introduced over several years. An earlier statistical analysis by NHTSA found that seat belts save more than 10,000 lives in the United States each year. [37] All new passenger cars had some form of seat belt from 1964, shoulder belts in 1968, and integrated lap belts in 1974 ([Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety (ACTS)], 2001). Only a few detainees wore the belt: surveys conducted at various locations showed that the use of the belt was about 10 per cent. The first large-scale survey, conducted in 19 cities in 1982, observed 11% of seat belt use by drivers and passengers ([Williams and Wells, 2004]). (UNC Centre for Road Safety Research, 2011, p. 2-4) Opponents have spoken out against laws on libertarian principles. [50] Some do so on the grounds that seat belt laws violate their civil liberties.
For example, in a 1986 letter to the editor of the New York Times, one author argued that seat belt legislation was “coercion” and that “a mandatory seat belt law violates the right to physical privacy and self-control.” [51] Seat belts are among the most common and effective safety devices ever invented. Since their introduction, seat belts have saved countless lives and prevented many injuries. But mandating seat belt use was a slow process, as they were required by law in each state at a different time. We must ask ourselves whether seat belts effectively protect both men and women. The reality is that women wear seat belts: if a person has a car accident, the car suddenly comes to a stop. A body wants to move forward because it drives at the same speed as the car used to move. A seat belt – and secondarily the airbag – stops that person`s forward impulse. The seat belt reduces the force your body absorbs by distributing impact energy to the strong bony parts of the body, allowing you to “drive” the accident. Wearing a seat belt confirmed to Hollister that the law was necessary. However, NHTSA has not given up seat belts. It adopted a new rule in 1977 that put the ball directly in the realm of car manufacturers.
Detroit had to install some sort of “passive restraint” — a system that worked automatically without driver intervention — that would protect a crash test dummy from damage if it crashed into a wall at 35 miles per hour. March 1982: Rep. David Hollister first introduces the idea of a state seat belt law. In the United States, seat belt legislation varies from state to state. The state of Wisconsin introduced a law in 1961 requiring seat belts to be attached to the front outer seats of cars. [9] Seat belts have been mandatory equipment since model year 1968 according to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208. Manufacturers build modern cars with safety recall warnings for front occupants to put on their seat belts. Many pregnant women fear that a car accident will harm them.
This is a concern that every pregnant woman should take into account before getting into a car. Many doctors and experts claim that a baby is absolutely safe if a pregnant woman wears her seat belt “correctly”. However, there are some situations that contradict this statement and still take risks even if everything is done “correctly”. This list contains only seat belt laws, which often do not apply to children themselves. Nevertheless, all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and all 5 lived in the United States. The territories have separate laws on child restraint systems. [Note 1] Note that these fines are only the basic fines. In many cases, significant additional fees, such as the head injury fund and forensic security fees, can often increase the total fine imposed by five.
These also apply to a “first offence”, and the fines for subsequent infringements are often much higher. [Citation needed] “At the end of the day, we had both airbags and mandatory seatbelt laws,” says Mashaw. “There was still a lot of resistance from people who thought it was a terrible violation of their freedom. People were selling t-shirts that made it look like you were wearing a seat belt. In Australia, following the introduction of mandatory outboard front mount points in 1964, seat belt use by all vehicle occupants in the states of Victoria and South Australia was made mandatory in 1970 and 1971 respectively. [1] Until 1973, seat belt use by vehicle occupants became mandatory for the rest of Australia and some other countries in the 1970s and 1980s. . .