Do Seat-Belts Reduce Road Casualties? Safety Interventions and Changes in the Driver's Behaviour
| Author | Tony Reinhardt-Rutland |
| Published date | 01 October 1999 |
| Date | 01 October 1999 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X9907200408 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
TONY REINHARDT-RUTLAND, BSc., MSc., DPhil.,
AFBPsS, CPs
Psychology Department, University of Ulster
at
Jordanstown,
Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim
DO SEAT-BELTS REDUCE ROAD
CASUALTIES? SAFETY
INTERVENTIONS AND CHANGES
IN THE DRIVER'S BEHAVIOUR
Introduction
Many safety interventions have been devised to reduce the 50,000 or so
deaths on EU roads each year. Some are not without problems. For
example, ABS braking is technically less effective than had been
expected, since certain collisions are in fact exacerbated by ABS
(Farmer et ai, 1997). Also, airbags have injured and killed short drivers
by their inopportune operation at low speeds (Duma et al, 1996). In
contrast, seat-belts have been regarded as particularly efficacious
(Evans, 1991, Wyatt and Richardson, 1994). Certainly the potential of
seat-belts in reducing casualty rates is difficult to fault. For a given
severity of collision, seat-belt use limits motion
of
the self within the
vehicle and ejection from the vehicle. Particularly compelling evidence
comes from UScases in which a vehicle involved in a collision contains
both belted and unbelted occupants: the belted occupants have a fatality
rate which is 40% less than for the unbelted occupants (Evans and Frick
1988; Evans 1990).
In Great Britain, statistics were obtained in the months before and
after 1983, the year of legislation compelling front-seat use of belts.
Following the legislation there was about a 50% increase in seat-belt
use and this was accompanied by a 20% reduction in front-seat
casualties, in line with Evans and Frick's evidence. However, the real
reduction due to belts was less than this, since new drink-driving
legislation was also introduced in 1983 (Harvey and Durbin, 1986;
Scott and Willis, 1985).
Long-term trends in British casualties suggest that the reduction in
front-seat casualties was in fact transitory; by 1989 trends in such
casualties followed pre-1983 levels (Adams, 1994). This is consistent
with trends in traffic speeds. Thomson et al (1985) studied the speed of
traffic on suburban roads in 1981 and reported a mean of 28 mph. In the
mid-nineties, government agencies were sufficiently concerned to
report such data themselves: these reveal a mean of 33 mph (UK
Government Statistical Service, 1997). The increase
of
5 mph may seem
modest - although it demonstrates a cavalier disregard of most drivers
October 1999 The Police Journal 333
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