Seat Belt Laws Increasing Seat Belt Use | Seattle Car Wreck Attorney

Working as a Seattle auto accident lawyer I am always interested in how our state is progressing in the way of decreasing the occurrence of fatal auto accidents. According to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission’s newest Seat Belt Study Washington continues to decrease the number of people riding in a vehicle without a seat belt. The Traffic Safety Commission has been conducting annual studies on seat belt use since the inception of the first seat belt law in 1986. Since the first study, seat belt use has been on a steady incline moving from 36% in 1986 to 96% in 2009.

The study had some interesting findings including differences in seat belt usage depending upon vehicle type and the roads traveled. Interestingly enough, trucks and vans had the lowest compliance rates while SUV’s had the highest. This seems a little odd to me that vans would come in so low when they are more likely to be carrying children as passengers. Also, roads with a slower speed limit had a significantly lower seat belt use rate at 93% than interstates with higher speed limits clocking in with 97% seat belt use rate.

The increase in seat belt use has been attributed to the states campaign to end the thousands of lives taken every year in auto accidents. In 2002 the Washington State seat belt law was made a primary offense, meaning, not wearing a seat belt can be the sole reason for pulling a person over.  The state also runs the Click it or Ticket campaign in which police forces focus on seat belt violators and issue $124.00 fines to violators.

I am happy to see that the number of seat belt users is steadily increasing, but with 4% of the population still not using seat belts over 200,000 lives our put at risk in Washington State alone. The benefits of buckling up have been proven time and time again- so please buckle up! For more information on seatbelt safety read the article: Seat Belt Safety.

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