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Use of Auto Safety
Belts Again Urged
Richmond, Va—“If everyone in Virginia had worn a seatbelt at til times last year when in a moving motor vehicle, an estimated 186 people who died in traffic crashes would have lived,” John T. Hanna, Director of the Virginia Highway Safety Division observed today. He noted that there were 1,304 traffic fatalities in Virginia in 1969. Of these, 241 were pedestrians, 18 motorcyclists and eight bicyclists, leaving 1,037 killed in four-wheeled motor vehicles. Continuing, he said that the National Safety Council estimates indicate that about 18 percent of those killed in such vehicles would have survived and that approximately 5.5 percent did survive because they wore their belts. This means that about 56 people involved in Virginia crashes are living today because of belts.
Hanna added that not only were lives saved but thousands of injuries prevented or made far less ssrious than they would have been had not belts been buckled.
He urged use of the shoulder belt in addition to the lap belt, ntotng that all passenger can manufactured after January 1, 1968, are required to be equipped with them and that lapbelts art already available to three fourth of all passenger car occupants The shoulder belt, he said, should never be worn without the lap belt, as one could be flunj forward and choked.
The safety official recommended that lap belts be snugly fitted over the pelvic area, rather than the stomach, but that the shoulder belt should be worn with a comfortable four to six Inch alack to permit movement necessary to driving. The shoulder belt, he said, lessens the possibility of head or chest Injuries which are often incurred when those parts of the body tfrike the steering wheel or Instrument panel.
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