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Reforming Public Safety: An Evaluation of the 1983 British Seat Belt Law
Author(s) -
LEGGE JEROME S.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9930.1987.tb00396.x
Subject(s) - legislation , seat belt , poison control , psychological intervention , deterrence theory , injury prevention , occupational safety and health , suicide prevention , intervention (counseling) , law , environmental health , engineering , medicine , political science , psychiatry , automotive engineering
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the 1983 British seat belt law in England and Wales. The methodology employed is interrupted time series analysis. In terms of a lasting impact, the seat belt legislation for automobiles compares favorably with other interventions designed to decrease deaths and injuries on the road, such as legislation to control drinking and driving. Typically, such legislation is effective only in the short term. In contrast, the seat belt law thus far shows a stronger and more lasting shift in the reduction of serious and fatal car casualties. The post intervention decline in this variable is stronger than a control series that consists of the number of fatal and serious non‐car casualties. A more marginal reduction is found for non‐serious car casualties even though this drop in injuries is slightly stronger than a control category of nonserious non‐car casualties. The paper suggests also that the seat belt legislation may have had a short term effect on the number of fatal and serious accidents on weekend nights, the period of time during which alcohol‐related crashes are most likely to occur. The policy implications of this study suggest that with comparable compliance, such an intervention may similarly be effective in the United States and other Western countries which up to now have used primarily deterrence‐based approaches to reduce highway casualties.