Educational activities and the effectiveness of the Massachusetts safety belt law. Submitted to the Massachusetts General Court by The Executive Office of Public Safety.

Massachusetts may be listed among the pioneering states in the area of occupant protection. The ninth state to enact, in 1981, a Child Passenger Safety Law for preschool children, the Commonwealth required safety belt use by school bus drivers and for students receiving the road instruction portion of driver education before enacting the 1985 safety belt law for all motorists. Massachusetts has a population of 5,737,093 (1980) including 3,831,746 licensed drivers (1984). There were 3,997,636 million vehicles registered in 1984 and annual mileage for that year totaled 390 million miles. Despite steady reductions in fatalities, attributed to enforcement of speeding and drunk driving statutes, Massachusetts suffered 445 fatalities and 52,290 (preliminary data) injuries in 1984 to motor vehicle occupants. Estimated economic costs of highway accidents for 1984 totaled $300,000,000. Safety belt usage in Massachusetts has been promoted through a steadily expanding educational campaign; usage levels, however, did not exceed the level of 19% in an observation survey conducted at the end of 1984. Conditions favouring passage of a mandatory usage law did not guarantee this event, but, on October 22, the 16th safety belt law in the United States was signed by Governor Dukakis, with an effective date of January 1, 1986 (Appendix A). A very brief planning period being available for drafting the safety belt usage law implementation program, the assistance of other states and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in planning and launching the Massachusetts law and implementation effort were invaluable and greatly appreciated. Observed usage rates, measured in December 1985, indicated (preliminary data) an average of 19.8%, slightly above the figure generally accepted as a national estimate. The goals of the comprehensive, statewide occupant protection program in general, and of the mandatory safety belt usage law in particular, are to reduce death and injury to motor vehicle occupants, and to increase usage of occupant protection devices, namely child car safety seats and safety belts.