Buckling up cuts deaths 7%, study finds

DETROIT — Seat-belt laws that allow police to stop motorists for failing to buckle up have reduced death rates by 7 percent, according to a study released Thursday by the insurance industry.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimated that 700 lives could be saved each year if other states would tighten seat-belt laws.

The study looked at so-called primary seat-belt laws, which allow police to stop motorists for failing to use belts. Secondary belt laws allow police to ticket motorists for failing to wear seat belts but only if they were pulled over for something else.

The study looked at driver fatality rates in the District of Columbia and nine states that had secondary seat-belt laws in 1989 but had enacted primary seat-belt laws by 2002. It compared the states' highway deaths from 1989 to 2003 to those of 14 other states that had secondary seat-belt laws in place throughout that period.

The institute found states that changed their laws had a 35 percent reduction in deaths.