Seat Belts Often Take a Back Seat

Every time Faro Badalamenti takes off in his private airplane, his seat belt is securely fastened. But he never even considers buckling up when he hops into his Ford Aerostar minivan.

Never mind that the 49-year-old hair stylist knows that a deadly car wreck is more likely than a plane crash. Old habits are hard to break and besides, he says, safety belts are uncomfortable. Then comes the clincher: A seat belt could become a deathtrap.

“What if I have a crash, can’t get it off and the gas tank explodes?” said Badalamenti, a Detroiter who sports a ragged salt-and-pepper beard.

Conjuring up such fiery scenarios, as well as voicing a multitude of other complaints about seat belts, is not unusual for the nation’s motorists. Indeed, 14 years after New York passed the first mandatory state seat-belt law, more than a third of Americans still ride unrestrained.

The public is increasingly demanding safer vehicles, laden with the latest high-tech protection systems. But at the same time, hard-core resistance to seat belts is widespread and persistent.

Many young men rebel, convinced of their own invincibility. Peer pressure sometimes makes wearing a belt unfashionable. Many find the straps physically annoying or confining. Others simply forget to buckle up when in a rush. Some avoid seat belts because they wrinkle their clothes.

Yet motorists are twice as likely to die in a serious crash if not buckled up. Even a modest increase in seat-belt usage over the next decade could save an estimated 40,000 lives and reduce medical costs by $60 billion.

With such high stakes in mind, the Clinton administration has begun a concerted push to increase the use of seat belts, recognized as the single most effective vehicle safety device. The goal is 85% by 2000, up from government estimates of 62% to 68%.

The federal government’s main strategy: pressuring states to adopt tougher mandatory seat-belt laws, which are known to be effective in changing people’s habits. Indeed, California’s strict laws are credited with making the state the leader in seat-belt usage, at a rate of 87%.

Buckling up has taken on added urgency because of growing safety concerns over air bags, which have been blamed for 87 deaths so far this decade. Most of the victims, which include 49 children, were unbelted.

Bowing to public pressure, the Department of Transportation last month agreed to permit consumers in high-risk groups to disable their own air bags, which were designed as supplements to seat belts. Even so, regulators warn that very few people should turn off their bags.

Political Flak Comes From Right and Left

Besides tougher state laws, not much else can convert hard-core non-bucklers, many safety advocates say. Even tragic events--such as the death of Princess Diana, who was riding in the back of her vehicle unbelted--do not cause wholesale behavior changes.

In pushing people to buckle up, the administration faces a battle against not just human nature but political flak from both the right and left. Libertarians bristle at government intervention and civil rights groups warn that stronger seat-belt laws give authorities more opportunity to harass minority drivers. Further, most Americans see the auto as the ultimate symbol of individual freedom and wearing a seat belt as a matter of personal choice.

Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have “primary” enforcement laws that allow police to stop and ticket motorists for not buckling up. Belt-usage rates in these states is on average 15% higher than elsewhere.

Most states--including here in Michigan, the heart of America’s auto industry--have “secondary” laws that allow police to ticket motorists only if another violation is observed first.

Only New Hampshire, whose motto is “Live Free or Die,” does not have a mandatory seat-belt law for adults, though it does require children to be strapped in.

Besides prodding states to enact tougher laws, the Clinton administration is also pushing states to beef up enforcement and education, such as advertising campaigns and driver education courses.

Achieving its goal of 85% compliance could save an additional 4,200 lives a year, prevent 102,000 injuries and reduce medical insurance and other costs by $6.7 billion, according to Transportation Department estimates.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that seat belts already save 9,500 lives every year. And despite lingering fears that a seat belt could trap a victim in a burning or submerged car, rarely has one been implicated in a crash victim’s death.

Despite the obvious benefits of seat belts, getting people to use them has been a struggle from the start. American auto makers cautiously introduced the devices nearly 50 years ago. The federal government made them mandatory in new cars in the 1960s.

By the early 1980s, less than 15% of motorists buckled up, prompting the federal government to encourage states to pass seat-belt laws. Public resistance was strong, however, and most states opted for weak secondary laws.

The federal government has launched previous initiatives to increase belt use but has always fallen short of its ambitious goals. In fact, seat-belt use has leveled off in the past three years, even declining slightly in about a dozen states. Experts say the latest effort faces a variety of psychological, social and political hurdles.

“It’s a tremendous challenge because it involves changing basic behavior and deeply ingrained habits,” said Janet Dewey, president of the Air Bag Safety Campaign, which directs lobbying for tougher state seat-belt laws.

NHTSA Administrator Ricardo Martinez calls the low seat-belt use in this country “pathetic,” noting that many other industrialized countries, including Canada, Australia and Germany, all have usage rates above 90%.

Even within the U.S., belt use varies widely--from a low of 43% in North Dakota, a rural state with lax enforcement, to above 80% in California, New Mexico and North Carolina.

Young Men Are Least Likely to Buckle Up

Non-bucklers present a polyglot profile. Generally, seat-belt use is tied to age, risk predilection and education, NHTSA studies show. Men younger than 25 are the least likely to use seat belts. Women are more likely than men to buckle up. Better-educated, higher-paid suburban dwellers strap in more than blue-collar city residents. Pickup owners shun belts more than car drivers.

For reasons less clearly understood, Westerners and import-car owners wear seat belts more than New Englanders and domestic car buyers. Whites and Latinos use them more than blacks.

About 10% to 15% of the population never wear seat belts, and another 20% to 25% are part-time users, federal officials said.

Hard-core nonusers typically are younger than 30 or are risk-oriented sensation seekers. They often are inexperienced drivers, more likely to have poor on-road records and prone to speeding, tailgating and drunk driving.

“It is a lethal combination,” said Allan Williams, vice president of research for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “Those that could benefit the most from seat belts are least likely to use them.”

Rebellion Moves Some to Reject Restraints

Less than half of drivers ages 16 to 24 wear seat belts, the NHTSA reports. Auto accidents are the leading cause of death for this age group.

Traffic psychologists say the rejection of seat belts is often a way to show disdain for societal values, establish a personal identity or affirm independence from parents. An air of infallibility and invulnerability affects some young male drivers.

“It’s an inability to come to grips with their own mortality,” said psychologist Arnold Nerenberg of Whittier.

Kirk McQuithey, an 18-year-old maintenance worker from Riverview, Mich., never wears a seat belt. He likes to drive fast and admittedly takes risks, such as frequently riding in the bed of a friend’s pickup truck.

Behind the wheel of his 1985 Pontiac Grand Am, McQuithey said he feels untouchable. “In a car, I feel like I’m in control,” he said. “If something goes wrong, I figure I can handle it.”

Peer pressure also plays a role. Research shows that youths often follow the behavior of friends and family.

Robert McCarren, a 28-year-old hardware store clerk in Taylor, Mich., said he has never worn a seat belt because no one in his family ever has. Despite being ticketed two weeks ago for speeding and driving without a seat belt, he said he will continued to ride unrestrained.

The barrel-chested McCarren said he finds seat belts confining. “I just don’t like the strap hanging around my neck,” he explained, adding that he worries about being able to get the belt unhooked in a panic situation, such as a burning car.

“These are myths that have no basis in fact,” said Timothy Hoyt, vice president of safety for Nationwide Insurance Enterprises. “The probabilities of them happening are immaterial, if they exist at all.”

However, the tendency is for people to focus on dramatic rather than mundane events. So public attention is drawn to infrequent airplane crashes that kill 100 people in one fell swoop rather than the many traffic accidents that kill 115 people each and every day, says James Walsh, author of “True Odds,” a book about risks in everyday life.

Feelings of Control, Safety Influence Use

Over a lifetime, the probability of dying in a car crash is about 1 in 60, while the risk of dying in a commercial jet crash is 1 in a million, Walsh said.

Flying makes people more queasy than driving because they have no control over a plane, but they feel in command of their vehicle. This heightened sense of safety leads many to avoid buckling up when driving to the store or work, even though most accidents occur within a short distance of home.

More than 20% of nonusers simply forget, blocking out warning buzzers and flashers when they are in a rush. Nearly a third reject belts as bothersome. Small women particularly complain of the shoulder harness cutting across their neck.

Tougher state laws may be the best way to change behavior, but the politics of the issue make passage difficult. In Michigan, for instance, the Legislature has rejected a primary law three times in recent years.

“It’s tough because there’s opposition from both far left and far right,” said Tim Tanner, lobbyist for the Michigan Seat Belt Coalition.

In Detroit and Wayne County, where usage is about 5% below the state average of 70%, talk of stronger laws is code language to blacks for police harassment.

Many black residents here bitterly recall police mistreatment before and after the 1967 riots. Police-community relations are much improved in Detroit, whose population is 80% black. But resentment lingers. Young black men commonly complain of being stopped unfairly when driving through nearby suburbs.

As a result, the NAACP, the strongest civil rights group in Detroit, opposes tougher belt laws.

“It would just be another tool in the box for police to pull someone over who has a certain look or fits a profile,” said the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the local NAACP chapter.

States that have primary enforcement report few complaints from minorities of police abuse.

“The reality is there has been no evidence of harassment as a result of primary seat-belt laws,” said Arthur Anderson, director of the California Office of Traffic Safety.

In Louisiana, a just-completed NHTSA study of primary enforcement found that police equitably applied the seat-belt law. Nearly the same proportion of whites and blacks got ticketed for violations.

Farmers offer the strongest opposition in the state to seat-belt laws. The Michigan Farm Bureau, which represents 154,000 farmers, opposes any expansion of police powers, including tougher seat-belt laws, wiretapping and sobriety checkpoints.

“We feel a primary seat-belt measure is an unwarranted expansion of police powers, an intrusion of individual rights,” said Farm Bureau lobbyist Howard Kelley.

This libertarian stance resonates in Michigan’s rural areas, where militia groups have sprouted up. Says John Hudak, a self-described libertarian from Waterford, Mich.: “If I want to kill myself, that’s my business. It’s not the government’s job to save people from their own stupidity.”

But seat-belt advocates argue that the decision to not buckle up ultimately affects everyone through higher taxes, medical costs and insurance premiums, as well as higher business expenses.

On average, the hospital costs for an unbelted accident victim are 50% higher than for a belted one, according to federal studies. Taxpayers pay some of those costs through Medicaid and Medicare.

“It’s hard to talk to me about individual rights when you have your hand in my pocket,” said Martinez of the NHTSA.

Tougher Laws May Have an Effect

Liability insurance premiums also are inflated by unbelted motorists. Bryan O’Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said the cost to insurers is “significant” but hard to quantify.

Today’s laws lack the teeth to increase usage much above 85%, insurance industry officials say. A model law would cover all vehicle occupants and carry stiff fines and points on a driver’s record, they say. Points can increase insurance premiums and ultimately lead to a license suspension.

Even those who have long shunned seat belts say they would begin buckling up if the penalties were stiffer and aggressively applied.

“If they really made them mandatory,” said hairstylist Badalamenti, “I would wear one.”

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Seat Belt Use

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that only 61.5% of vehicle occupants wear seat belts. This is based on a 1996 survey. The estimate is slightly lower than the 68% overall rate reported by the states, some of which do not include pickup trucks or vans. Both show wide variation among demographic groups.

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1996 1994 Overall use 61.5% 58.0% Occupants Drivers 62.2% 59.1% Passengers 58.8% 55.2% Vehicle Car 64.4% 62.8% Light truck 56.5% 50.2% Age Under 1 93.2% 87.7% 1-4 74.9% 60.7% 5-15 64.6% 57.7% 16-24 49.5% 52.6% 25-69 62.4% 59.1%* 70+ 68.8% 59.1%* Sex Female 68.0% 64.4% Male 56.8% 54.4% Race White 62.6% 59.6% Black 51.2% 53.0% Other 58.0% 54.6% Urbanization City 61.1% 57.7% Suburbs 64.4% 62.9% Rural 60.1% 52.8%

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* In 1994, survey was for 25 years and older.

Source: NHTSA