California IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : Seat Belts Credited for Drop in Deaths

Seat belt usage brought the state the lowest mileage death rate in state history, and the biggest decline in that rate in a decade, according to the Office of Traffic Safety. The statewide safety belt usage rate last year was 70.7% according to the Office of Traffic Safety--an improvement of almost 3%. And when Caltrans calculates the year’s mileage death rate--the number of traffic fatalities per 100 million miles of vehicle travel--it is expected to drop from 2.0 to 1.7, officials said. “It is clearly no coincidence,” said CHP commissioner Maury Hannigan, “that this five-year series of record lows started with an aggressive public awareness and enforcement campaign by the CHP and other law enforcement agencies in support of the state’s safety belt law.” When the safety belt requirement became law in 1986, fewer than half the state’s vehicle occupants used them on a regular basis.