A Farmers Insurance analysis of 2006 fatal crash data recently released by the U.S. Department of Transportation shows seat belts remain “the most important protection for the driver,” economist Kevin Mabe, the study’s author, said.
“We found that when a driver used a seat belt, the odds of a fatality dropped nearly 70 percent compared to a driver who did not,” Mabe said in a news release. Earlier this year, Mabe released a study on 2005 accident data that reached similar conclusions.
“A driver’s three-second choice to ‘buckle up’ will more than double his or her chances to survive a severe accident,” he said.
The analysis involves 41 variables that account for factors such as road and traffic conditions at the time of the fatal accident, location and time, accident events, vehicle specifics, driver demographics, and safety features, making it possible to isolate seat belts’ role more precisely.
Other key factors in decreasing the odds of a driver’s death included the type of crash –rear-end collisions proved less deadly than head-on or T-bone collisions – and the size of the vehicle occupied: Larger vehicles, such as trucks, SUVs and vans, appeared to protect the driver better than a typical automobile.
Dry roads, in contrast with wet roads, decreased the odds of a fatality by more than 10 percent, Mabe found, highlighting the importance of using caution when driving on slick roads.
In addition, nighttime and winter driving tended to produce more deadly accidents, the study found. And certain types of accidents, such as rollovers, ejections, and vehicle fires, greatly reduced the survivability in an accident.
Motorcycle accidents had particularly high mortality rates, Mabe found.
Driver height and weight, on the other hand, “appeared to have little influence on the outcome of the accident,” Mabe said, though age did play “an important part,” with older drivers and young new drivers at increased risk. The model showed little evidence of differences between regions, Farmers said.
A copy of Mabe’s study can be obtained by writing him at Kevin.Mabe@farmersinsurance.com. •
