Rear-seat safety belts reduce death risk

– Rear-seat safety belts reduce death risk.

A University of Granada study in Spain found that the use of safety belts in vehicle back seats reduces the risk of death by 44 percent.

Researchers Pablo Lardelli Claret, Jose Juan Jimenez Moleon, Aurora Bueno Cavanillas and Juan de Dios Luna del Castillo used data provided by the governments General Traffic Directorate on road crashes, which occurred from 1993 and 2002 in Spain. They analyzed the death of the occupants of the rear seats according to their age, gender, use of restraint systems and seat position.

The researchers only considered the data concerning vehicles occupied by two or three rear-seated passengers for accidents in which at least one of these passengers was killed.

The study authors analyzed all 5,260 rear-seated passengers, who were traveling in 2,266 vehicles of which 2,851 were killed.

The study found women were 28 percent more likely to die in a rear-seat vehicle crash than men, and children up to 2 years old were 70 percent more likely to die in a crash than those ages 15 and 19 years old.

The study also found that the risk in the rear seats of a vehicle is higher for those older than age 64.
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