Highway safety advocates say a deadly gap exists in the nation's seat belt laws: Most states don't require adult passengers in the back seat to buckle up.
The District of Columbia and 49 states have seat belt laws for adults, but only 21 states and the district require that seat belts be used in all seating positions. Safety advocates such as Barbara Harsha of the Governors Highway Safety Association hope a new federal transportation funding bill will include incentives for states to enact seat belt laws for all vehicle occupants, no matter where they're sitting.
"If a person in the back seat is not belted and the vehicle is involved in a crash, especially a head-on crash, the person in the back seat can become a human projectile," says Tom Welch, a state transportation safety engineer for Iowa's Transportation Department.
Last week, Minnesota became the 21st state to require that all vehicle occupants wear seat belts. Louisiana could be the 22nd as a measure that would require all occupants to wear belts heads toward legislative approval.
"My real concern is the pattern it puts in place, that the government can tell people what's good for them," says James Baxter, president of the National Motorists Association, which opposes all mandatory seat belt laws. "When it comes to my own life, I believe I should be able to make that kind of decision myself," Baxter says.
Rear seat belt use was higher in states requiring belt use in all seating positions, according to a recent survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Rear seat belt use in the USA was at 74% in 2008, compared with 83% for front seat belts, according to the May survey.
Wearing rear seat lap and shoulder belts greatly improves the odds of surviving crashes -- for both rear and front seat passengers, NHTSA research shows. Rear seat lap and shoulder belts are 44% more effective in reducing crash fatalities compared with unrestrained occupants in passenger cars and 73% more effective in passenger vans and sport-utility vehicles.
New Hampshire is the only state without a seat belt law for adults.
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