142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

310068
Continuous observations of seat belt use using naturalistic driving data

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 9:00 AM - 9:15 AM

James Hedlund, PhD , SHRP 2, Transportation Research Board, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC
Background. Lap/shoulder seat belts reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent. In 2013, 14% of all front-seat occupants were unbelted. To increase belt use it is critical to determine which occupants are unbelted in which circumstances.

Methods. Naturalistic driving studies provide continuous records of volunteer drivers’ trips, including speedometer, lane position, forward radar, and video of the driver and the road. The SHRP 2 Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) contains data from 3,147 passenger vehicle drivers in 6 geographic areas over 3 years, with 5.4 million trips. Driver belt use data are available for newer vehicles.

Results. The current data, containing 313,171 trips, are not representative of the full data set. These results illustrate the findings that will be available in summer 2014.

Driver belt use over an entire trip

Proportion of trip using belt

Proportion of drivers

Always – 100%

50.7%

80-99%

39.5%

60-80%

3.6%

40-60%

1.1%

20-40%

0.6%

under 20%

4.5%

Drivers who always wear their belt, by age

Age

Always use

16-24

42.6%

35-44

49.0%

55-64

57.8%

75-84

47.7%

Conclusions. The NDS data can yield far better information on driver belt use under all conditions than can roadside surveys during daylight hours. The many other variables in the NDS database provide almost limitless opportunities to understand real-time driver behavior.

The public can access de-identified categorical NDS data through the website https://insight.shrp2nds.us/. The full 5.4 million trips will be available in December 2014.

Learning Areas:

Epidemiology
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs

Learning Objectives:
Identify several types of data collected in the SHRP 2 Naturalistic Driving Study Describe ways in which the data can be used to improve highway safety Identify the data access website and understand required steps before data access is granted

Keyword(s): Motor Vehicles, Data Collection and Surveillance

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the SHRP 2 Safety coordinator and have worked with the data used in this abstract for three years. I have written over 60 papers on behavior aspects of traffic safety, including seat belt use. I am thoroughly familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of current methods to estimate belt use and with strategies to increase belt use in the United States.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.