Abstract
A reconstruction of each lethal episode, based upon vehicle examination, police reports and autopsy data, leads to the following conclusions: with rare exceptions, deaths occurred in spite of and not because of belt use; and two-point lap belts do not consistly prevent fatal injury in high speed crashes. However, a comparison of fatality incidence in belted vs. non-belted victims shows that belt users are not represented in the total crash fatality population to a significant degree.