Seat Belt Use on North Dakota Rural Roads: 2014

With the understanding that seat belts are a relatively low-cost safety device, and are an easy primary protection for occupants in passenger vehicles, North Dakota has chosen to continue to measure rural roads seat belt use. The U.S. Department of Transportation works with states to measure seat belt use through the annual National Occupant Passenger Use Survey (NOPUS). However, NOPUS does not include observation sites on local rural roads – the location for 1 in every 3 fatal crashes during the past five years (North Dakota Department of Transportation 2008). A total of 5,687 driver seat belt observations were collected at 142 sites across 24 rural counties. Highway seat belt use increased from 69.0% in 2013 to 71.7% in 2014. Since 2009, the survey has measured a 16.5 percentage point increase in rural highway seat belt use. Similar to previous findings, seat belt use was found to be significantly different on rural highways compared to rural towns. Observed highway use rates for counties ranged from 51.2% to 81.7% and 13.9% to 68.4% in towns.

• Record URL:
  https://www.ugpti.org/resources/reports/details.php?id=776
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute

  North Dakota State University
  1320 Albrecht Boulevard
  Fargo, ND  United States  581052
• Authors:
  • Vachal, Kimberly
  • Benson, Laurel
• Publication Date: 2014-10

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 29p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Highway safety; Rural areas; Seat belt use
• Geographic Terms: North Dakota
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01544540
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: DP-274
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Nov 24 2014 3:28PM