Texas not only requires seat belt use, it requires drivers to ensure their children passengers are adequately protected. There is no doubt that seatbelts prevent injuries and save lives. Overall, seat belt use in the United States has increased each year over the past several years. Studies have shown that seatbelts are the most important safety feature we have to prevent serious injury car accidents.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the use of the seatbelt can reduce the risk of a serious injury by 50%. Estimates show that at least seventy-five thousand people were saved in a four-year period. In a more recent study suggested that numerous additional lives could be saved if more people use her seatbelt.
The groups that are least likely to wear seat belts include, teenagers, professional truck drivers, and rural males. Additionally, drinking drivers and people driving at night or less likely to wear a seatbelt, according to studies.
Females are much more likely to wear seatbelt than a male and seatbelt use among drivers who are alone was lower than those with passengers, according to a NHTSA report.
Most states, including Texas have laws addressing who must use seatbelts and when. In Texas, Chapter 545 of the Transportation Code addresses child passenger safety seat systems, which requires a child younger than eight years old who is not taller than 4'9", to be secured in a child safety seat system.
Further, Section 545.413 of the Texas Transportation Code makes it an offense to drive a passenger vehicle and allowing a child is younger than seventeen (and not required to be secured in a child passenger seat system) to ride in the vehicle without being secured by a seatbelt.
We have seen several instances after a serious accident where children were killed or seriously injured and the driver of the vehicle charged because the children were not belted at the time of the accident even when the accident was not the driver’s fault.
It is important for all drivers in Texas to not only use the seatbelt themselves but to make sure that those who are riding with them particularly teenage children are adequately belted.
