SEAT BELT EFFECTIVENESS ESTIMATES USING DATA ADJUSTED FOR DAMAGE TYPE

The evaluation of the effectiveness of restraints in preventing fatality and reducing injury severity is confounded by differences in the crash conditions experienced by unrestrained, lap-belted, and lap-and-shoulder-belted car occupants. These differences introduce a bias into the comparisons of fatality and injury rates. To make the comparisons fairer, it is necessary to account for the differences in crash conditions by restraint use. In this paper two elements of the Collision Deformation Classification, area of damage and extent zone for the damage, are used to describe the crash conditions. The data are adjusted in three different ways to reflect the experiences of three different groups of victims. Because restraints are more effective in some types of crashes than in others, this leads to three different estimates of overall restraint effectiveness. These three estimates should be interpreted as addressing the following three questions about restraint effectiveness: (1) How useful are restraints for the people who now use them? (Adjust the data to reflect the crash conditions of restrained occupants.) (2) How useful would restraints be if everyone used them? (Adjust the data to reflect the overall crash conditions.) (3) How useful would restraints be for people who do not now use them? (Adjust the data to reflect the crash conditions of unrestrained occupants.

• Corporate Authors:

  National Center for Statistics and Analysis

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • PARTYKA, S C
• Publication Date: 1984-1

Media Info

• Features: Appendices; Tables;
• Pagination: 50 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash severity; Fatalities; Injury severity; Manual safety belts; Measures of effectiveness; Restraint systems; Shoulder harnesses; Utilization
• Uncontrolled Terms: Effectiveness
• Old TRIS Terms: Occupant restraint; Shoulder harness
• Subject Areas: Highways; Research; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00491844
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• Report/Paper Numbers: HS-040 151
• Files: HSL, TRIS, USDOT
• Created Date: Mar 31 1990 12:00AM