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.
In fatal crashes in 1995, only two percent of restrained passenger car occupants were ejected, compared to 25 percent of unrestrained occupants. Ejection from a vehicle is one of the most injurious events that can happen to a person in a crash. Three-quarters of the occupants who are ejected from passenger cars are killed. From 1984 through 1987, belt use increased from 14 percent to 42 percent as a result of the passage of seat belt use laws in 31 states. Then, from 1990 through 1992, belt use increased from 49 percent to 62 percent as a result of a national effort of highly visible enforcement and public education.