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AJPH First Look, published online ahead of print Oct 3, 2006
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November 2006, Vol 96, No. 11 | American Journal of Public Health 1949-1954
© 2006 American Public Health Association
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2005.074385

GOVERNMENT, POLITICS, AND LAW

Safety Belt Use and the Switch to Primary Enforcement, 1991–2003

David J. Houston, PhD and Lilliard E. Richardson, Jr, PhD

David J. Houston is with the Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Lilliard E. Richardson, Jr, is with the Institute of Public Policy, Truman School of Public Affairs, University of Missouri-Columbia.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to David J. Houston, Dept of Political Science, 1001 McClung Tower, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996–0410 (e-mail:dhouston{at}utk.edu).

State seat belt laws have increased use rates and have reduced traffic fatalities, but tremendous variation exists in the laws. New Hampshire does not have a law, and 30 states have only secondary enforcement laws. Whereas primary enforcement allows an officer to issue a citation for any infraction, secondary enforcement permits a citation only if a motorist is stopped for another infraction first.

We performed a cross-sectional time-series analysis of the impact of upgrading to primary enforcement on belt use rates for 47 states and the District of Columbia from 1991 to 2003. Our results suggest that states with secondary enforcement laws could increase belt use by 10 percentage points and improve public safety considerably by upgrading to primary enforcement.




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