Seat belt legislation requires the fitting of seat belts to motor vehicles and/or the wearing of seat belts by motor vehicle occupants. The U.S. state of Wisconsin introduced legislation in 1961 requiring front seat belts to be fitted to cars. The Australian state of Victoria mandated front and rear seat belt use from 1970.
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In 1961 the U.S. state of Wisconsin introduced legislation requiring seat belts to be fitted to the front outboard seat positions of cars.[1] The Australian states of Victoria and South Australia followed in 1964, with a similar requirement for belt anchorages, although not for the belts themselves.[2] In 1965 cars built in Europe were required to be fitted with front seat belts.[3] This was followed in 1967, by the requirement in the United Kingdom to fit three-point belts in the front outboard positions, and by the requirement in South Australia to fit belts (two- or three-point) to the front outboard positions, in all new cars.[2]
The use of seat belts by vehicle occupants was made compulsory in Victoria, Australia, in 1970, followed by the rest of Australia and some other countries during the 1970s and 1980s. The subsequent dramatic decline in road deaths, equivalent to thousands of lives saved in Australia alone, is generally attributed to seat belt laws and subsequent road safety campaigns.[4]
Successive UK Governments proposed, but failed to deliver, seat belt legislation throughout the 1970s.[5] In one such attempt in 1979 similar claims for potential lives and injuries saved were advanced. William Rodgers, then Secretary of State for Transport in the Callaghan Labour Government (1976–1979), stated that: "On the best available evidence of accidents in this country - evidence which has not been seriously contested - compulsion could save up to 1000 lives and 10,000 injuries a year."[6]
This section gives an overview of when seat belt legislation was first introduced in different countries. This includes both regional and national legislation.
| Country | Compulsory wearing | Compulsory fitting | Source | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cars | Bus passengers | Cars | Buses | ||||
| Driver | Front passengers | Rear passengers | |||||
| Australia | 1970 [1] | ||||||
| Belgium | 1973 (outside cities), 1975 (post-1967 cars), 1979 (all) | 1990 | 2003 | 1978 | 2003 | [2] | |
| Canada | 1976 | ||||||
| European Union | 1993 | [3] | |||||
| France | 1973 (outside cities), 1975 (cities at night), 1979 (all) | 1990 | 2003 | 1979, 1982 (back seat) | [4] | ||
| Germany | 1976 | 1984 | 1999 | 1970, 1979 (back seat) | 1999 | de:Gurtpflicht | |
| Hungary | 1976 | 1993 | [6] | ||||
| Hong Kong | 1983 | 1983 | 1996 | 1996 (back seat) | |||
| Ireland | 1979 | 1992 | |||||
| Japan | 2008 | 1969 | [8] | ||||
| Malaysia | 1979 | 2009 | [9] | ||||
| Netherlands | 1976 | 1992 | 1975 (front) 1990 (rear) | ||||
| New Zealand | 1972 | 1972 (15 years and over), 1979 (8 years and over) | 1989♣ | 1972 (vehicles registered after 1965), 1975 (after 1955) | [10] | ||
| Singapore | 1973 | 1973 | 1993 | 2008 | 1973 | ||
| Spain | 1975 | ||||||
| Sweden | 1975 | 1986 | 1969 (front) 1970 (rear) | 2004 | [11] [12] | ||
| Thailand | 2001 | ||||||
| United Kingdom | 1983 | 1991 | 1967 (front) | RoSPA | |||
| United States | 1984 | Front lap 1965 model year; front shoulder & rear lap 1968; 3-point front 1974 | [13] | ||||
♣ - definitely introduced by this date, possibly earlier
Studies by road safety authorities conclude that seat belt legislation has reduced the number of casualties in road accidents.
Experiments using both crash test dummies and human cadavers also indicated that wearing seat belts should lead to reduced risk of death and injury in car crashes.
Studies of accident outcomes suggest that fatality rates among car occupants are reduced by between 30 and 50 per cent if seat belts are worn. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that death risks for a driver wearing a lap-shoulder seat belt are reducing by 48 per cent. The same study indicated that in 2007, an estimated 15 147 lives were saved by seat belts in the United States and that, if seat belt use were increased to 100 per cent an additional 5024 lives would have been saved.[www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pubs/811206.pdf]
An earlier statistical analysis by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) claimed that seat belts save over 10,000 lives every year in the US. According to Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data:[7]
In Victoria, Australia the use of seat belts became compulsory in 1970. By 1974 decreases of 37% in deaths and 41% in injuries, including a decrease of 27% in spinal injuries, were observed, compared with extrapolations based on pre-law trends.
By 2009, despite large increases in population and the number of vehicles, road deaths in Victoria had fallen below 300, less than a third of the 1970 level, the lowest since records were kept, and far below the per capita rate in jurisdictions such as the United States. This reduction was generally attributed to aggressive road safety campaigns beginning with the seat belt laws.[8][9]
New York State passed the first seat belt law in the US in 1984 under the leadership of John D. States, an orthopedic surgeon who dedicated his career to improving automotive safety.[10] In the USA, seatbelt legislation varies by state. Depending on which state you are in, not wearing a seatbelt in the front seat is either a primary offense or a secondary offense, with the exception of New Hampshire, which does not have a law requiring people over age 18 to wear a seat belt. In the front seat, the driver and each passenger must wear a seat belt, one person per belt. Though in states such as New York, New Hampshire, Michigan, etc. (See article State Seat Belt Laws), seat belts in the rear seats are not mandatory for people over the age of 18, though it is extremely advised. The driver and front-seat passengers aged 16 or older can be fined up to $50 each for failure to buckle up. A primary offense means that a police officer can pull you over for the seatbelt law violation alone, and secondary offense that you can be punished for a seatbelt law violation only if you are already pulled over for another reason. By January 2007 25 states and the District of Columbia had primary seatbelt laws, 24 secondary seatbelt laws, and New Hampshire had no laws.[11] In 2009, Public Health Law Research published several evidence briefs summarizing the research assessing the effect of a specific law or policy on public health. One stated that "Safety belt laws work, but there is strong evidence to support that primary enforcement safety belt laws are more effective than secondary enforcement laws in increasing seat belt use and reducing crash injuries."[12]
Another found that "there is strong evidence that enhanced seat belt enforcement interventions can substantially increase seat belt use and its associated benefits."[13]
In the UK, seat belts must be worn at all times if they are fitted to a vehicle. Passengers may be exempt from wearing a seat belt on medical grounds only. Since September 18, 2006, children travelling in the UK must also use an appropriate child seat in addition to the standard seat belt.[14]
All provinces in Canada have primary enforcement seat belt laws. Ontario was the first province to pass a law which required vehicle occupants to wear seat belts in 1976.[15]
In many developing countries, pedestrians, cyclists, rickshaw operators and moped users represent the majority of road users. In the state of Gujarat in India, seat belts have been made compulsory in six major cities, Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Surat and Vadodara.
In Malaysia, there are four stages pertaining to the legislation of safety belt laws. The first stage was implemented in 1979, making the wearing of seat belts compulsory for the driver and front seat passenger. On January 1, 2009, the second stage mandated the wearing of rear seat belts. Passenger vehicles registered prior to January 1, 1995 and those weighing more than 3.5 tons are exempted from this rule. The third and fourth stages, which will deal with baby and child seats and the number of passengers in a vehicle, have not taken effect.[16]
A number of groups and individuals are opposed to seat belt legislation. The most common grounds for opposition are:
The most common basis for disputing estimates of the benefits of seat belts is risk compensation and risk homeostasis advanced by researchers John Adams and Gerald Wilde. The idea of this theory is that, if the risk of death or injury from a car crash is reduced by the wearing of seat belts, drivers will respond by reducing the precautions they take against crashes.
Along with many others Adams accepts the hypothesis that wearing seatbelts improves a vehicle occupant’s chances of surviving a crash.[17]
In order to explain the disparity between the agreed improvement in crash survival and the observed results, Adams and Wilde argue that protecting someone from the consequences of risky behaviour may tend to encourage greater risk taking. Wilde states "... to compel a person to use protection from the consequences of hazardous driving, as seat belt laws do, is to encourage hazardous driving. A fine for non-compliance will encourage seat belt use, but the fact that the law fails to increase people's desire to be safe encourages compensatory behaviour." [18] Studies and experiments have been carried out to examine the risk compensation theory. In one experiment subjects were asked to drive go-karts around a track under various conditions. It was found that subjects who started driving belted did not drive any slower when subsequently unbelted, but those who started driving unbelted did drive consistently faster when subsequently belted.[19] A study of habitual non-seatbelt wearers driving in freeway conditions found evidence that they had adapted to seatbelt use by adopting higher driving speeds and closer following distances[20] In another study, taxi drivers who were habitual non-wearers were timed over a route with passengers who did, and others who did not, insist on the driver wearing a belt. They completed the route faster when belted.[21]
In addition to risk compensation, Adams has suggested other mechanisms that may lead to inaccurate or unsupportable predictions of positive benefits from seatbelt legislation.
Occasional opponents have objected to the laws on libertarian principles.[22] Some do so on the grounds that seat belt laws infringe on their civil liberties. They argue that not wearing seat belts is a victimless crime as the only person harmed is the one making that decision for himself about his own life.
The counterpoint to the libertarian view toward seatbelt laws is that mandatory usage may reduce injuries and deaths (while possibly increasing the number of accidents) but also reduces the economic cost to society. Another notable scenario is of rear-seated passengers being forced forward in a crash and thus inadvertently harming the driver or front passenger, which could be argued as an infringement of his/her liberties. A University of Wisconsin study demonstrated that car accident victims who had not worn seatbelts cost the hospital (and the state in the case of the uninsured) on average 25% more.[23] However, the psychological benefit to a road user in not wearing a seatbelt is difficult to compare to monetary savings, owing to the lack of a common unit of comparison.
Critics have pointed to fatalities and injuries caused by wearing seat-belts. Chest injury may cause cardiac arrest, lung bruises are amongst the most common causes of death by seat-belts especially for people of weak heart such as the elderly who can also suffer a heart attack and not be able to free from the seatbelt in order to get to help. In neck injury cases, the deceleration from a high-speed impact can cause a seat-belt wearer's head to continue forward suddenly while the body is restrained, potentially causing paralyzing injuries. A study of such injuries notes "Seatbelts save lives. However, they may cause injury to adjacent structures and when they malfunction can cause injury to the abdominal viscera, bony skeleton and vascular structures. The motor industry has attempted to reduce these injuries by modification of vehicle design and safety equipment."[24]
Links to sites/studies that endorse seat belts:
Links to sites/studies skeptical/critical of seat belt legislation +