subject: California Drivers Have Some Of Highest Seat Belt Usage Rates In Us [print this page] This is the kind of news that California car accident attorneys would applaud. A news report by the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention indicates that California drivers have some of the highest rates of seatbelt usage in the country. Besides California, Oregon and Washington also have high seatbelt usage rates.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report is based on a telephone survey. The results of the survey indicate that Oregon has the highest number of seat belt usage rates in the country. Approximately, 94% of people in Oregon said that they always buckled up while driving. California was a close second with 93.2% of the persons saying that they always buckled up while driving. Washington State has 92% seatbelt usage rates. It's not a coincidence that all states have primary seatbelt enforcement laws. That means that law-enforcement personnel can pull a driver over if an occupant in the car is not wearing a seatbelt.
The state where residents were least likely to report buckling up was New Hampshire. It can't be a coincidence that New Hampshire is the only state that does not have a mandatory seatbelt law. Only about 66% of the residents of New Hampshire said that they buckled in while driving. Two states, South Dakota and North Dakota also had miserably low seat belt usage rates at 59.7% and 59.2% respectively. In both these states, seatbelt enforcement is a secondary enforcement offense. For instance, law-enforcement personnel cannot pull over a motorist simply because an occupant in the car was not wearing a seatbelt. Police officers must pull over the driver for another offense, before citing him for seat belt violations. The report shows that states with primary seat belt enforcement laws have much higher seatbelt usage rates.
Seatbelt usage around the country has increased steadily, especially in California. According to a study published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the injury rate dropped 16% between 2001 and 2009 for motor vehicle occupants. However, during 2001 and 2008, seatbelt usage increased from 81% to 25%.
Not everything in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report is good news. According to the report, approximately one in 7 Americans admits to not always wearing a seat belt while driving. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises all occupants of a motor vehicle to buckle up to reduce the risk of serious or fatal injuries in an accident. According to the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention, if all states had strict seatbelt laws including primary enforcement, then close to 450 lives could have been saved in 2009. Approximately 12,000 injuries could have been prevented if all occupants of a motor vehicle had been wearing a seatbelt. Besides, the rate of traffic accident fatalities is much higher in the US, compared to the European Union, where seatbelt usage rates are much higher than this country.
