The Auto Channel
The Largest Independent Automotive Research Resource
The Largest Independent Automotive Research Resource
Official Website of the New Car Buyer

Detroit Car Company Studies Safety Belt Reminders That Click With Drivers

Warren, Mich. - Do you fasten your safety belt before you start the engine, while engaging the transmission, rolling down the driveway or even later? The answers are helping General Motors safety engineers design seat belt reminder systems that may click with non-belt users.

In the meantime, GM is announcing its support for the Click It or Ticket safety belt enforcement campaign, which continues through Nov. 30.

"The good news is that more people than ever are using safety belts," said Jim Khoury, a GM safety engineer and expert on advanced safety belt and air bag research. "The challenge for us as an automaker is to use technology to help convince the roughly 20 percent of drivers who don't regularly buckle up to do so."

One key may lie in enhanced safety belt reminder systems. A study GM commissioned showed that nearly 69 percent of drivers fasten their safety belts after starting their vehicles, and about 20 percent don't buckle up until the vehicle is put into gear.

Another 3 percent do not fasten their safety belt until more than 19 seconds after placing the vehicle in gear. The study helps reaffirm GM's practice of equipping vehicles with reminder systems that go beyond the current federal mandates, and it will likely lead to an even more ambitious system in future years.

"We applaud GM for its commitment to improved safety belt reminder systems. Devices that enhance belt use will reduce death and injuries on American roadways," said Jeffrey W. Runge, M.D., administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

"This study helped us learn more about when people buckle up, and confirms for us that a more prolonged reminder system may help get some safety belt holdouts to buckle up," said Khoury.

In the GM study, independent researchers observed drivers in two urban areas, Halifax, Nova Scotia, where safety belt use is high; and Pinellas County, Fla., where safety belt use is lower. A total of 1,600 drivers were observed leaving for work and in the parking lots of self-service gas stations, supermarkets, banks and drug stores.

The current safety belt reminder system in the majority of new GM vehicles consists of eight seconds of a chime and 20 seconds of a solid warning light, followed by an additional 55 seconds of flashing light. In 2004 model year full-size pick-ups and sport-utility vehicles equipped with an automatic front passenger air bag suppression system, front-seat passengers also are reminded electronically to fasten their safety belt. Federal law requires four to eight seconds each of chime and light for the driver only.

In 2001, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety studied a seat belt reminder system that chimes for up to five minutes and found that it increased belt use among drivers in Tulsa and Oklahoma City by 5 percentage points.

Nationally, safety belt use is at 79 percent, the highest ever, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NHTSA has determined that with each percentage point increase in seat belt use, 250 lives would be saved each year. If all current non-users buckled up, $26 billion annually could be saved in medical care, lost productivity and other injury-related costs.

During the Click It or Ticket campaign, 12,000 law enforcement agencies will focus particularly on the nation's most at-risk drivers - teens and young adults -- and enforce seat belt laws by implementing the proven strategy of stepped-up, high-visibility enforcement. Sponsors include the Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign, of which GM is a founding member; the National Safety Council; NHTSA; the National Transportation Safety Board and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

A new study released by the National Safety Council shows that more than 12,000 people have needlessly died because of the failure of states to enact primary seat belt use laws. Primary seat belt laws, which GM supports, enable law enforcement officers to ticket motorists based solely on an observed seat belt violation, just as they do any other motor vehicle infraction. Currently 20 states covering 60 percent of the U.S. population have primary laws. New Hampshire is the only state with no adult seat belt use law.

For more information about the life-saving benefits of seat belts and air bags, please visit the safety section of GMability.com.