The Injury Prevention Research Center at Emory (IPRCE) has been awarded $296,500 from the Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety (GOHS) to measure seat belt use rates and driver distractions in Georgia this year. The funding will help provide insight into what factors — including gender, race/ethnicity and age group — affect safe driving behaviors.

Between May and August 2024, IPRCE will send trained observers to 400 sites in 20 Georgia counties throughout the state to observe seat belt use. Observers will document whether drivers and right front-seat passengers are wearing seat belts. Rates of driver distraction, including hand-held cell phone use, will also be measured. 

This will be the third year that IPRCE has estimated seat belt use rates using roadside observations.

“Our past observations have found that seat belt use for drivers and right front-seat passengers in Georgia decreased from 89.3% in 2022 to 87.6% in 2023,” says Jonathan Rupp, PhD, professor and director for research, Department of Emergency Medicine at Emory, and the director of IPRCE. “During the same time frame, rates of driver hand-held cell phone use increased from 5.8% to 6.8%. Tracking seat belt use and driver distraction rates and observing how they vary across Georgia, will assist the state in knowing where to target efforts to increase seat belt use and reduce distraction.”

Rupp serves as principal investigator of these studies.

• The seat belt use rate was lower for drivers (86.7%) vs. right-front passengers (92.5%)
• The seat belt use rate varied between type of vehicle driven — 88.3% in passenger cars, 91.6% in SUVs, 80% in trucks and 85.3% in vans/minivans. 
• The seat belt use rate was higher for women (91.2%) than for men (84.2%).
• The seat belt use rate was highest among Hispanic occupants (89.3%), followed by white occupants (88.4%) and Black occupants (84.3%).
• Seat belt rates were highest in counties in the Atlanta metropolitan statistical area (MSA) (89.2%), followed by counties not in an MSA (84.7%) and counties in other MSAs (83.7%). MSAs are geographic regions with a relatively high population density and adjacent counties with economic ties to the central area.
• Seat belt use was highest among those 70 years of age and older (90.3%), followed by those 8-15 years old (right front-seat passengers only) (87.4%) and those aged 25-69 (87.4%), those aged 16-24 (85.3%), and those <8 years old (right front-seat passengers only) (68.5%).

• 19.6% of drivers of cars, trucks, SUVs and vans/minivans were observed to have some form of visible distraction, such as talking, texting, dialing or eating. 
• Talking (hands-free) was the most commonly observed distraction (7.4%) followed by other distractions (5.4%), texting or dialing with a hand-held device (5%) and talking with a hand-held device (1.9%).
• Driver distraction was higher in passenger cars (20.1%) and SUVs (20.4%) than in vans/minivans (18.9%) and trucks (17.2%).
• Distracted driving was higher for women (22.3%) than for men (17.7%).
• Driver distraction was highest in Atlanta MSA (20.1%), followed by non-MSA (19.3%) and other MSA (17.8%)
• Driver distraction decreased with increasing age.

Rupp says results from the 2024 research will be used to assess progress on the state’s work to reduce death and injury in motor-vehicle crashes by increasing rates of restraint use. IPRCE will share data with the GOHS-facilitated State Highway Safety Plan task teams who are developing programs and organizing efforts to prevent injury.  

“The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and our collaborators continue to implement programs designed to save lives and promote safe driving behaviors,” says Allen Poole, director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. “We ask everyone to help our state and nation reach the attainable goal of zero traffic deaths by driving safe speeds, always wearing a seat belt, keeping the focus on the road and not the phone, and never operating a vehicle under the influence of any substance that impairs your ability to drive.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that 42,915 people were killed in traffic crashes in the United States in 2021, which is a more than 10% increase from 2020 and the most traffic deaths in the nation since 2005. 

Roadside observations of seat belt use will be performed in the following 20 Georgia counties starting in May 2024: Cobb, DeKalb, Early, Floyd, Gwinnett, Habersham, Haralson, Harris, Hart, Monroe, Morgan, Murray, Peach, Polk, Richmond, Rockdale, Spalding, Thomas, Ware and Worth.