By Randy Jotte, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 26, 2007
Thinking of driving without your seat belt today? Some people are.
It''s a gamble, and the odds aren''t good. According to the Missouri Highway Patrol, the probability of a driver dying in a collision is one in 1,017 — if that driver is restrained by a seat belt. Unbelted, the chance of death is 1 in 32.
Earlier this month, the Missouri legislature began considering a bill that could save some of these lives. Since 1985, Missouri law has required drivers and front-seat passengers to buckle up, but enforcement of that law has secondary status; that is, drivers first must be stopped for another violation, such as speeding or running a red light, before they can be ticketed for failure to wear a seat belt.
House Bill 90 would align Missouri with 24 other states that elevate the enforcement of seat-belt laws to primary status. This would permit police to stop drivers simply for not wearing their safety belts. The human and economic benefits of such a law would outweigh any concerns by a wide margin.
The rate of seat-belt use in Missouri — 75 percent — lags behind the national rate of 81 percent and trails even further the 85 percent rate in states with primary laws, including Illinois, which has an 88 percent use rate. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, some primary law states — including Hawaii, Nevada and Washington — have use rates exceeding 95 percent.
Given the lower rates of seat-beat use, it''s not surprising that when cars are involved in collisions in secondary enforcement states, their drivers and passengers die more frequently than drivers and passengers in primary states. In Missouri, 1,257 people died in crashes in 2005, two-thirds of whom were not using seat belts.
Our teenage drivers, with fatality rates twice that of their parents in vehicle crashes and more than four times that of their grandparents, would benefit most from passage of HB 90. Surveys conducted by the Missouri Department of Transportation show only 58 percent of Missouri teens use seat belts. Peer pressure is a significant reason young drivers don''t buckle up, and the risk of being stopped and ticketed could supply a rationale — even an excuse — for them to use their seat belts and insist that everyone in the car do so, too.
There are economic benefits, as well. NHTSA calculates that a primary law in Missouri would save more than $230 million annually in medical expenses, lost productivity, property damage and related costs. Cumulative Medicaid costs alone would decrease by at least $100 million over the next 10 years. Passage of a primary seat-belt law also would make Missouri eligible for an additional $16 million in federal funds for highway safety.<
Most opponents of a primary enforcement law tend to cite the risk of racial profiling and the restriction of personal freedom. Clearly, race must never be a factor in the enforcement of any traffic law, and research in two states that have upgraded their secondary laws to primary status — Louisiana and Georgia — indicated no change in ticketing patterns by race.
The other argument suggests that any interference with a person''s driving violates personal freedom, yet those who pay the highest price for such a political philosophy are our youngest and most inexperienced drivers. The fact is, the social contract among individuals in a self-governing nation occasionally requires some give and take, speed limits being an obvious example.
In that regard, it''s worth thinking about what the surviving family members of the 1,257 Missourians who died in highway crashes in 2005 might say about the value of a primary seat-belt law.
Dr. Randy Jotte is president of the Missouri College of Emergency Physicians and an associate professor in the Division of Emergency Medicine at the Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital.