More states need to strap in some seat belt laws, CDC says

Good news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- seat belt use is up and crash deaths are down, according to information released Tuesday.

The percentage of adults who always wear seat belts rose from 80% to 85% between 2002 and 2008, according to the CDC. Officials credit better and stricter laws on seat belt use for part of the rise: In 1982, before the first state law required seat belts to be used, only 11% of people strapped in.

But as of 2010, 19 states populated by a quarter of adult Americans did not have a primary seat belt law, and 1 in 7 adults still don’t wear their seat belts on every trip. (Of note: Men are less likely to buckle up than women.)

That number has to go down, the CDC says, because wearing seat belts cuts the number of crash-related serious injuries and deaths in half.

That shouldn’t be surprising: check out this handy comparison, courtesy of Georgia State University, of wearing two types of seat belts (stretch and nonstretch) to not wearing a seat belt at all. A driver not wearing a seat belt feels more than seven times the force of a stretchy seat belt wearer -- and his head probably goes through the windshield.

In case you still need persuasion, read more at the CDC vital signs page on seat belts.