Safety belt effectiveness in preventing fatalities to drivers is examined versus a number of factors (vehicle, accident and environmental) by applying the double pair comparison method to appropriate subsets of the Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) data. In all, 13 factors were investigated. For each factor safety belt effectiveness (the percent of fatally injured unbelted drivers who would not have been killed if they had been wearing safety belts) is estimated, as is an associated standard error of the estimate. The results, which are presented graphically, provide no evidence that safety belt effectiveness is systematically influenced by most of the factors investigated, including car mass and model year. The absence of any systematic relationship with car mass is in agreement with an earlier finding based on the pedestrian fatality exposure method; this agreement adds plausibility to the assumptions used for both the earlier and the present methods. From the results it is indicated that safety belt effectiveness is greater for single car crashes than for crashes involving two cars. It is also suggested that safety belt effectiveness is greater for two-door than for four-door cars; and is also greater for striking cars than for the struck cars.
Abstract