Surpassing even the 90 percent national average for the second year in a row, the West Virginia Governor’s Highway Safety Program (GHSP) announced this week that West Virginia drivers buckled up 90.2 percent of the time in 2019.
State officials credit the rise in seat belt use to a mix of educational efforts coupled with deterrents like Click It or Ticket campaigns and making enforcement highly visible. This year’s rate was down a bit from 2018 — which hit a record 90.53 percent — but officials still cite how much of a change this represents from West Virginia’s past seat belt rates.
“When I began working for the GHSP, West Virginia’s rate was the worst in the country, around 50 percent,” GHSP Director Bob Tipton said. “We have seen significant improvements in several highway safety performance measures since the passage of the primary seat belt law in 2013. We have made great strides when it comes to seat belt use, but I would like to see it continue to increase in the years to come.”
Since 1998, an annual survey of seat belt use has been conducted, which introduced the rate at just 56.5 percent. It was not until 2013 and the establishment of a primary seat belt law, however, that the statewide usage rate consistently trended upward. This has coincided with a reduction in deaths and crashes on West Virginia roads. In fact, between 2007 and 2018, fatalities decreased from 432 to 294.
“We want our people to absolutely be as safe as possible while they are traveling on our roads here in West Virginia,” Gov. Jim Justice said. “I’m very proud of all the hard work that has gone into putting us above the national average in this truly important category. But we can’t stop – we have to keep working all the time to make our seat belt usage as close to 100 percent as possible. And I’m confident we’ll keep getting better and better.”
The figures for the seat belt usage study were collected by random observations made between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Observers also noted vehicle type, driver gender, and use of mobile devices.