Predicitng seat use in fatal motor vehicle crashes from observation surveys of belt use

摘要

There is a large difference between the rates of observed seat belt use by the general public and belt use by motor vehicle occupants who are fatally injured in crashes. Seat belt use rates of fatally injured occupants, as reported in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), are much lower than the use rates found in observation surveys conducted by the states. A series of Mathematical models describing the empirical relationship between FARS and observed rates were explored. The initial model was A 'straw man' and used tow simplifying assumptions: (a) belt users and nonusers are equally likely to be involved in 'potentially Fatal collisions', and (b) belts are 45/100 effective in preventing deaths.