In the State of New Jersey in January, 2010, legislation was signed into law requiring alloccupants, including the rear seat occupants, to wear a seat belt regardless of their seatingposition in a vehicle. Although it is known that unbelted rear-seat passenger impacts the safetyof the driver, it is not clear the level of impact. The objective of this research is to identify thefactors that influence the injury severity of a belted driver with and without rear-seat occupants.Injury severity models were developed using crash data from the Fatality Analysis ReportingSystem (FARS) for NJ from 2004 to 2006.The results indicate that the probability of sustaining more severe injuries by a driver or rightfrontseat occupant is higher when a left-back seat, or middle-back seat, or right-back seatoccupant is unbelted. For vehicles with two back seat occupants (left-back or right-backoccupant), coefficient values for these variables indicated that non-seat belt usage by any ofthese occupants would impact the injury severity level of a belted driver. The results show thatthe right-back seat occupant has the greatest impact on the injury level of drivers compared to theleft-back and middle-back occupants. Although seat belt usage by a back seat occupant is foundto impact the injury severity of a belted driver, this research however, demonstrated that thisimpact of becomes more significant or increases as the number of back seat occupant in thevehicle also increases.
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