Safety belt use

Evans, W. N. and Graham, J. D. 1991. Risk reduction or risk compensation The case of mandatory safety-belt use laws. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 4, 61-73. 

Booster seat When child no longer fits in child safety seat but is not big enough for safety belt. Used with an adult lap and shoulder belt. Seat is not attached to the automobile. Should only be used in a seating position where there is a shoulder and lap belt. High-back seats and backless seats are good in most situations. If the back of the automobile seat or headrest is below the ears of the child, use a high-back booster. 

Brittle, C. and M. Cosgrove (2005). Unconscious motivators and situational safety belt use literature review and results from an expert panel meeting. Final report on NHTSA project DTNH-22-04-P-05230 submitted to the U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington DC. 

Chaudhary, N. K. and V. S. Northrop (2004). Predictive models of safety belt use a regression analysis of MVOSS data. TrafficInj. Prev., 5, 137-143. 

Fernandez, W. G., S. D. Mehta, T. Coles, J. A. Feldman, P. Mitchell and J. Olshaker (2006). Self-reported safety belt use among emergency department patients in Boston, Massachusetts. BMC Pub. Health, 6,111-121. 

Li, L., K. Kim and L. Nitz (1999). Predictors of safety belt use among crash-involved drivers and front seat passengers adjusting for over-reporting. Accid. Anal. Prev., 31, 631-638. 

Robertson, L. S. (1975). Safety belt use in automobiles with starter-interlock and buzzer-light reminder systems. Am. J. Pub. Health, 65, 1319-25. 

Shimamura, M., M. Yarmazaki and G. Fujita (2005). Method to evaluate the effect of safety belt use by rear seat passengers on the injury severity of front seat occupants. Accid. Anal. Prev., 37, 5-17. 

Shinar, D. (1993). Demographic and socioeconomic correlates of safety belt use. Accid. Anal Prev., 25(6), 745-755. 

GeUer, E. S. (1984). A Delayed Reward Strategy for Large-Scale Motivation of Safety Belt Use A Test of Long-Term Impact. Incident Analysis and Prevention, 16(516), 457 3. 

GeUer, E. S., and Hahn, H. A. (1984). Promoting Safety Belt Use at Industrial Sites An Effective Program for Blue Collar Employees. Professional Psychology Research Practice, 15, 553-564. 

Many people have developed tiie habit of safety-belt use, for example, but the number of times belt use occurred before it became automatic varied dramatically across individuals, and depended partly on the strength of the old bad habit. Specifically, how ingrained was a person s routine of entering and starting a vehicle without buckling up How inconvenient is the simple buckle-up behavior for a certain individual in a particular vehicle ... 

The current rate of safety belt use in the United States is about 70 percent (NHTSA, 2000), a dramatic improvement from the 15 percent prior to statewide interventions, including belt-use laws, campaigns to educate people about the value of safety-belt use, and large-scale enforcement blitzes by local and state police officers. 

Peltzman s article has been criticized on a number of counts, primarily statistical but it did stimulate follow-up investigations. Dr. John Adams of University College, London, UK, for example, compared traffic fatality rates between countries with and without safety-belt use laws. His annual comparisons (from 1970 to 1978) showed dramatic reductions in fatal vehicle crash rates after countries introduced seat-belt use laws. Taken alone this data would lend strong support to seat-belt legislation. But the drop in fatality rates was even greater in countries without safety-belt use laws (Adams, 1985b). Apparently, the large-scale impact of increased use of vehicle safety belts has not been nearly as beneficial as expected from laboratory crash tests. Risk compensation has been proposed to explain this discrepancy. 

Learning safety from television. Now consider the potential observational learning in showing television stars using vs. not using vehicle safety belts. When seeing a television hero buckle up, some viewers, mostly children, learn how to put on a vehicle safety belt others are reminded that they should buckle up on every trip still others realize that safety belt use is an acceptable social norm. On the other hand, the frequent nonuse of safety belts on television teaches the attitude that certain types of individuals, perhaps macho males and attractive females, do not use safety belts. 

As depicted in Figure 7.8, safety-belt use on prime-time television clearly increased across the first four years, averaging 8 percent of 2094 driving scenes observed in 1984, 15 percent of 1478 driving scenes in 1985,22 percent of 927 driving scenes observed in 1986, and 29 percent of 96 driving scenes monitoi in 1995. 

Figure 7,9 Safety-belt use on prime time television is substantially below the national average. Adapted from England et al. (2000). With permission.

Geller, E. S., Motivating safety belt use with incentives a critical review of the past and a look to the future, in Advances in Belt Restraint Systems Design, Performance, and Usage, no. 141, Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc., Warrendale, PA, 1984. 

Geller, E. S., Using television to promote safety belt use., in Public Communication Campaigns, 2nd ed.. Rice, R. E. and Atkin, C. K., Eds., SAGE Publications, Newberry Park, CA, 1989. 

I am "imconsciously competent" about some safe driving practices, particularly safety-belt and turn-signal use, but these behaviors were not always habitual. With safety-belt use, I can recall going through each of the stages in Figure 8.11. When lap belts first appeared in vehicles, I barely noticed them. I even remained "unconsciously incompetent"... 

In the mid-1970s, 1 learned well the statistics that justify the use of vehicle safety belts on every trip. In fact, 1 actually taught the value of using safety belts in my safety workshops at the time. However, the popular quote "Do as 1 say, not as 1 do," applied to me. Even though 1 knew the value of safety-belt use, 1 still did not buckle up on every trip. 1 was "consciously incompetent" with regard to this safe behavior. 

The second approach to the Define and Observe stages of DO IT involves a limited CBC (perhaps targeting only one behavior) and does not necessarily involve one-to-one coaching. This is the approach used in most of the published studies of the behavior-based approach to safety (for example, see reviews by Petersen, 1989, and Sulzer-Azaroff, 1982, 1987). This was the approach used by my students years ago when they observed, recorded, and graphed my safety-belt use as my vehicle entered and departed the... 

Vehicle safety-belt use across all Ford plants increased from 8 percent to 54 percent, and this behavior change in 1984 alone saved the lives of at least 8 employees and spared about 400 others from serious injury. Corporate cost savings were estimated at 10 million during the first year and cumulated to 22 million by the end of 1985 (Gray, 1988). 

In another variahon, Roberts and his students (1990) disseminated vinyl folders with the "Flash for Life" messages on front and back to 10,000 school children. They observed children "flashing" throughout the community and found higher rates cf safety-belt use among children who received the flash card. Again, this points out tlie power of involvement. 

Consider this personal experience from the mid-1980s. I observed a woman approach the driver of an airport shuttle, asking her to "Please use your safety belt." The driver immediately buckled up. When I thanked the woman for making the buckle-up request, she replied that she normally would not be so assertive but she had just heard a buckle-up reminder on her flight, "and if a stewardess can request safety-belt use, so can I."... 

You would think that product ad activators on television are less effective in directing behavior than promotions at store locations. Similarly, it is reasonable to predict that promoting vehicle safety-belt use on television would be less effective than presenting buckle-up activators at road locations, as exemplified by the "Flash-for-Life" intervention. This assumption is supported by the classic and rigorous evaluation of safety-belt promotion in public service annormcements on television by Robertson et al. (1974). 

Overall mean safety-belt use among drivers was 8.4 percent for males and 11.3 percent for females for the intervention group, and 8.2 percent and 10.3 percent for the control group. It is easy to conclude that television public service announcements have no effect on whether a person buckles up (Robertson, 1976). 

Figure 10.13 The feedback sign in Newport, VA, compared the safety-belt use of males and females.

The identical message was posted on a three-foot by six-foot sign in front of the Newport Community Center, located about one-half mile from the sign shown in Figure 10.13. The five-inch letters were black and removable. Every Monday the percentages were changed to reflect mean safety-belt use for males and females during the prior week. 

Vehicle observations continued for 24 weeks, then the feedback sign was removed. After 21 weeks of observation during this withdrawal condition, the signs were reinstated, but with a different message. We wanted to see if safety-belt use could be activated with a sign that did not need to be changed weekly to reflect belt-use feedback. The new message was, "WE BUCKLE UP IN NEWPORT TO SET AN EXAMPEE FOR OUR CHILDREN."... 

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