{"id":34629,"date":"2011-01-06T11:46:31","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T16:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=34629"},"modified":"2011-01-06T11:46:31","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T16:46:31","slug":"seatbelt-usage-soars-to-record-85","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2011\/01\/seatbelt-usage-soars-to-record-85\/","title":{"rendered":"Seatbelt Usage Soars to Record 85%"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The kid is no dummy. Americans are buckling up more than ever.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you\u2019re one of those who can\u2019t even move the car up the driveway without having a seatbelt on, don\u2019t feel alone.\u00a0 According to the latest survey by the Centers for Disease Control, more Americans than ever are clicking it \u2013 but the study also raises questions about those who won\u2019t buckle up despite overwhelming evidence that seatbelts are the most effective safety device ever added to the automobile.<\/p>\n

The CDC found that 85% of American motorists are wearing their belts, a dramatic, nearly eight-fold increase over the last 30 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot wearing seatbelts is costing us lives and money,\u201d said CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden. Buckling up, he stressed, \u201ccuts in half the chance of being seriously injured or killed in a crash.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Click Here for Free Subscription!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The good news is that increased seatbelt usage appears to be paying off in the steady decline in traffic injuries and fatalities.\u00a0 The highway death rate, which peaked in 1988 at 47,087, fell by nearly a third, to 33,000 in 2009, the latest year for which federal data are available.<\/p>\n

Still, an estimated 2.3 million Americans were treated in emergency rooms for crash-related injuries in 2009 and the CDC estimates the annual cost of medical care related to vehicular collisions totals more than $11 billion.<\/p>\n

Seatbelt use does vary, not only according to where you live but also depending on where people sit in a car.\u00a0 Back seat passengers are still more likely to travel without using their restraints.<\/p>\n

North Dakota has, by far, the lowest seatbelt usage in the country, according to CDC data, at 54%.\u00a0 Oregonians, on the other hand, are nearly unanimous, 94% buckling up.<\/p>\n

And living in a state where seatbelt usage is a primary law \u2013 where you can be pulled over and fined simply for not buckling up, rather than having to be first stopped for another violation \u2013 translates into about a 10% higher usage rate.<\/p>\n

Still, 19 states don\u2019t have primary belt laws, which the researchers claim results in an additional 450 deaths and 12,000 injuries annually.<\/p>\n

Passing such a law is \u201cOne area where states can make a policy change that doesn’t cost anything and can save lives and money,” according to Frieden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A record 85% of Americans are buckling up, but thousands more are still dying needlessly because they won’t use seatbelts, the Centers for Disease Control reports. More from TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34629"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=34629"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=34629"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=34629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}