America's Experience with Seat Belt and Child Seat Use Seat belts and child safety seats work. Yet, fewer than 40 percent of both adults and children who died in traffic crashes were properly restrained.
Seat belts work .
They are the most effective means of reducing fatalities and serious injuries when traffic crashes occur and are estimated to save 9,500 lives in America each year. Every 14 seconds someone in America is injured in a traffic crash and every 12 minutes someone is killed. When a traffic crash occurs, occupants are still traveling at the vehicle's original speed at the moment of impact. Just after the vehicle rapidly comes to a complete stop, unbelted occupants slam into the steering wheel, windshield, or other parts of the vehicle's interior. Seat belts provide the greatest protection against occupant ejection.