Do States or Federal Laws Dictate Seat Belt Use?

By Mitch Gurney

November 17, 2009

I was intrigued by the comments made in a KAW posting “Lets talk about Insurance Company Actuaries” yesterday regarding seat belts. I too had the impression it was Federal laws that dictated the use of seat belts and was surprised to learn after some research plus placing a call to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA), a divison of the U.S. Transportation Dept, that there is no Federal seat belt law. Instead this control is left to the states themselves.

The NHTSA establishes regulations pertaining to the safety equipment that is required in motor vehicles sold in the U.S but does not determine compulsory usage laws themselves.

A 2006 Arizona Senate Brief Issue Report stated: 

There is no federal seat belt law. The U.S. Department of Transportation, through the National Highway Transportation

Safety Administration (NHTSA), offers grant programs to states; in 2002, 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico shared a $44.4 million grant. …Grant monies were reauthorized for safety belt programs in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), which was signed into law (PUBLIC LAW 109–59) in August of 2005.  

My notation:

[It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 10, 2005 and expired as of September 30, 2009. Congress is expected to begin working on a replacement bill for the next six-year period during its 2009 session].

They had explained the two main types of seat belt laws as:

There are two main types of safety belt laws: primary enforcement and secondary enforcement. Primary enforcement laws allow police officers to stop a vehicle because of a suspected seat belt violation, while secondary enforcement laws allow peace officers to issue a citation for a seat belt violation during a traffic stop for another violation.

Wikipedia provides the same general information plus a chart showing which states have implemented seat belts laws indicating which states are primary or secondary enforcement laws.   

A Pennsylvania Law Firm explains the following regarding Federal laws on their website, Understanding Federal Seatbelt Laws: 

In the United States, federal law does not control most seat belt laws. Instead, this control to set laws is given to the states themselves…Here’s what you should understand about seatbelts in regards to federal law:

• As of September 2007, manufacturers must provide three-point seatbelt design for all passenger seats. Prior to that, the rear middle seat was only required to have a lap belt, and even earlier, all back seats were only required to have lap belts. This seatbelt design requirement is meant to prevent seatbelt failure and other injuries due to seatbelt problems. Federal law gives you the right to contact a lawyer is you have been injured due to seatbelt failure. Use this form to contact someone about your experience today!
• As of 2007, 25 states allow officers to pull you over and give you a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. In 24 of the remaining states, officers may give you a ticket if you’ve been pulled over for something else and were not wearing a seatbelt.
• Children need to not only wear their seatbelts – they also need to be in a special car or booster seat. In 11 states this is required up to age four, in 6 states this is required up to age 5, in 16 states this is required up to age 6, in 6 states this is required up to age 7, and in the remaining states (as well as in Washington, D.C.) this is required up until age 8 or older. Regardless, the safest place for a child under 16 is in the back seat.

I found a brief history of auto safety regulations and the debate over this issue interesting and as with most legislative matters in this country, especially those which we believe restrict our freedoms, that we have wrestled over this particular issue for years:      

A Brief Seatbelt History

In 1950, the first factory-installed seatbelts in the U.S. appeared in the 1950 Nash Statesman and Ambassador models…This was nearly 20 years after U.S. physicians had begun urging auto manufacturers to provide seatbelts in cars…Until the late 1960s and early 1970s, the automotive industry in the U.S. was almost entirely unregulated, and concern over traffic safety had been minimal… in 1970 a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard proposed that all vehicles manufactured after January 1, 1973 be equipped with an automatic restraint mechanism. This technological concept meant one of two things: air bags or automatic belts. The auto industry, which would incur the costs of automatic restraint systems (though consumers would ultimately absorb the costs through the price of the car) strongly opposed this rule…Over the next ten years the standard was debated, delayed, altered, and eventually rescinded by NHTSA in 1981…This favorable decision for auto manufacturers was not in the best interest of the insurance industry for whom motor vehicle crashes, injuries, and fatalities are costly…Consequently, State Farm Insurance brought NHTSA to court in 1983; the ruling was in favor of the insurance company, and NHTSA was ordered to write a regulation for automatic occupant restraint systems…In 1984, NHTSA proposed that automatic restraint systems be required in new vehicles unless two-thirds of the U.S. population was covered by a mandatory seatbelt law by September 1989. With a substantial incentive to see seatbelt laws adopted in a majority of states (which would place the responsibility for safety on the public as opposed to the auto industry), auto manufacturers joined forces with NHTSA and traffic safety advocates to support states’ passage of mandatory seatbelt use laws.

So it seems if you want to repeal seat belt laws, you will need to lobby your respective states legislators.

Mitch Gurney