A Successful Program for Increasing Occupant Safety Belt Usage
Authors: Rupp Gary L. , Dueweke John J. 
Published: January 2012

In December of 1981 a survey of 10 Ford facilities throughout the United States showed that safety belt usage among Ford employees was about the same as the 1981 national average of about 11%. In view of this low usage, and convinced of the value of wearing safety belts, Ford began to look for ways to increase employee belt usage. In 1983, three Ford plants participated in pilot programs. A corporate committee, consisting of five volunteers, reviewed the results of these pilot programs and concluded that a corporate-wide program in 1984 should be conducted.

The single most important aspect of the corporate initiative was to allow volunteer employees at each local facility to plan and administer a safety belt program best suited to their own needs. The corporate committee strongly recommended that two key elements of a program ought to be: (1) an “awareness” session in which employees were shown the value of wearing safety belts, and (2) distributions of small-valued incentives to assist in promoting the program. The corporate committee also requested that four observational surveys be taken during the program. The corporate committee also requested that four observational surveys be taken during the program. In this paper, the results of the program developed at Ford's Research and Engineering Center will be presented.

The Research and Engineering Center employs about 14,000 people working in some 30 buildings scattered in an area just outside Detroit, Michigan. Formation of a local committee for such a large complex of buildings presented several interesting problems which will be discussed. Once the main committee was in place, three subcommittees–awareness, incentives, and surveys–were formed to guide the important aspects of the program. The awareness subcommittee had to develop a training program and then find and train volunteers to run the awareness sessions. The incentives subcommittee had to plan and secure an incentives budget and then find a way to distribute the incentives. The survey subcommittee had to plan, conduct, analyze and report results of the surveys. Also, approximately 75 observers had to be trained in order to cover the 42 different entrances and the three different work shifts.

For the midnight and the day shifts, observations of shoulder belt usage for both driver and right front passenger were made as vehicles entered the workplace. For most of the buildings that had afternoon shifts, the same observations were made as vehicles exited the workplace. Tape recorders were used to record the observations at entrances having a high traffic volume and at the main entrance used by the midnight shift. About every 5–10 minutes observers also noted the time of day so that a distribution of arrival times could be determined for each entrance.

Approximately 12,000 observations were made on each of the four surveys. A baseline survey taken in late April prior to the start of the program showed a wearing rate of 38.7%. A survey in early June immediately following the completion of all awareness sessions showed the overall usage rate had increased by 15 percentage points to 53.7%. A third survey taken in mid-September near the need of the program indicated that during the incentive phase, the employee belt usage had increased another 9 percentage points to 63.1%. The final survey, on October 31, showed that usage rate was holding at 63% even though the program had been completed at least one month earlier in most buildings.

During the next several months there were no organized safety belt activities. In April of 1985, prior to the start of the 1985 employee safety belt campaign, another survey was taken. Belt usage dropped only slightly to 59.5%. We were extremely pleased with such a high response maintenance. Over 2,500 more employees have now made belt wearing a part of their normal driving behavior.

Although the Research and Engineering Center has primarily a salaried workforce, similar programs developed at other Ford facilities showed comparable gains in employee belt usage. Based on testimonials we have received, we know that a number of lives have been saved and injuries reduced as a result of this program.