Congratulations Washington motorists.
Washington has achieved a 93% seat belt use rate the highest level in the country! Seat belt use in Washington State, as measured by statewide observation surveys, increased by ten percentage points between 2001 and 2002, reaching at 93 percent!
TYPE
OF
VEHICLE
 NUMBER OF OBSERVATIONS
JUNE 2002		 RATE
JUNE 2002		 NUMBER OF OBSERVATIONS
SEPT 2002		 RATE
SEPT 2002
PASSENGER
CARS
56,564
92.0%
53,005
94.0%
PICKUP
TRUCKS
20,183
85.6%
19,133
88.7%
SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES
16,642
93.4%
18,302
93.9%
VANS
12,414
90.3%
12,747
91.4%
STATEWIDE TOTAL
105,803
90.7%
103,187
92.6%

The improvement in seat belt use by motorists during the summer months coincided with fewer occupant deaths when compared to the prior monthly average death toll. The change is illustrated in figure 1.

Figure 1: 2002 VEHICLE OCCUPANT DEATHS, BY MONTH, COMPARED TO THE PRIOR 6-YEAR AVERAGE.
The numbers of monthly occupant fatalities for the first five months of 2002 were slightly higher, but statistically equivalent to prior years. However, from June to September the number of deaths has been consistently lower than in prior years.

Print this page

Download this story in Word

Back