Whether people should be required to wear seatbelts has provided no shortage of passionate responses from letter writers on both sides of the matter. For some of you, it just makes sense to reach for the seat belt every time you get into your car. For others, the legal requirement is a violation of your personal rights.
Wherever you stand on this issue, results from a recent statewide survey released by the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission should make you happy — 400,000 more people are buckling up.
Seat belt use by Washington drivers has increased from 82 percent of drivers to 91 percent, according to the survey, and there already appears to be a noticeable dip in death tolls. Maybe some won’t want to link the two factors, but it’s hard not to notice.
Unfortunately, this is too late for some Snohomish County teenagers who were killed in auto accidents this year. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, recent studies show that low belt use among teen passengers is still a problem that needs attention. In a June 8 report, the Institute found that nearly half of teenage passengers in their study didn’t wear safety belts, regardless of whether an adult was with them.
This should worry people. Teenage drivers account for the majority of single-vehicle accidents in the U.S., and it is common for them to drive with younger siblings or neighbors. According to the Washington Department of Transportation, more than two-thirds of young people killed in crashes were unrestrained. Washington’s new law should help tackle this phenomenon by ticketing any driver whose unbelted passengers are under age16. And studies show teen passengers are much more likely to use seatbelts when the driver, whether an adult or another teenager, buckles up.
Although critics of Washington’s new "Click it or Ticket" seat belt law deny that not wearing a seatbelt violates others’ rights, a study conducted at the University of Tokyo demonstrated that not using a seat belt indeed endangers the lives of others. The force of a passenger’s body catapulting to the front seat in a 30 mph hour crash is calculated to be 3.5 tons. The study also found that drivers who are buckled up still have five times the risk of dying in a collision if their rear seat passengers are not buckled up.
While parents should be responsible for setting the driving ground rules for their children, ultimately it’s up to teenage drivers to make sure they and their passengers are wearing seat belts. And teen passengers can no longer afford to think they’re only hurting themselves if they don’t buckle up. Ask anyone who has lost a loved one in an auto accident — no scientific study is needed to prove that the simple act of buckling up can prevent an unnecessary and tragic loss of life.
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