New Systems Urged to Step Up Seat Belt Use
The country’s top traffic safety official is urging auto makers to install new technologies that encourage motorists to wear seat belts.
All vehicles sold in the United States must have a buzzer and dashboard light that reminds drivers to buckle up.
Jeffrey Runge, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said Monday that auto makers should go further.
Runge cited Ford Motor Co.’s new BeltMinder system. Drivers who aren’t buckled up in a vehicle with BeltMinder are subjected to five minutes of intermittent beeping and a flashing light on the instrument panel. The system is standard on all of Ford’s 2002 model year vehicles.
A study by the insurance industry found that 76% of drivers in vehicles with BeltMinder buckled up, compared with 71% in vehicles without the system.
Runge said a 5% increase in belt use among all vehicles on U.S. roads would prevent more than 1,000 deaths and 20,000 injuries each year.
“I hope your company will carefully examine the Ford BeltMinder system and any other technological ideas you have to increase seat belt use, and ask that you consider installing these systems in your vehicles voluntarily as quickly as possible,” he wrote in a letter to the heads of the major auto makers.
He asked each manufacturer to respond within two months and suggested the systems should address back-seat passengers as well as those riding in the front.
A spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said auto makers already are working on technologies and techniques to increase seat belt usage.
Seat belt use in the United States has risen in recent years to 73%, but that’s still far behind the 90% to 95% found in Canada and some European nations.
Runge told a Senate panel last week that the government is abandoning a Clinton-era plan to reach 90% by 2005 because it’s unrealistic. He set a goal of 78% for 2003.
Congress recently instructed NHTSA to work with the National Academy of Sciences on a study of technologies that could increase belt usage. Runge said that study will be completed in spring 2003.
