Low Seat-Belt Usage Reported Among Commercial Vehicle Drivers

Despite increasingly stringent seat belt laws and corporate policies, statistics show that seat-belt usage among commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers remains low

Despite increasingly stringent seat belt laws and corporate policies, statistics show that seat-belt usage among commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers remains low, San Diego-based DriveCam Inc. reports. Its Risk InfoCenter analysis of risky driving behavior, based on data gathered from 1,985 CMV drivers in the distribution sector, reveals that 1,286 of them Û or nearly 65 percent Û had at least one seat-belt violation.

DriveCam’s analysis follows the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s release earlier this year of its Safety Belt Usage by Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers 2007 Survey. Providing estimates of seat belt use by drivers and other occupants of medium- and heavy-duty CMVs, based on observations of CMV drivers and CMV other occupants at 654 sites, the survey revealed that the overall safety-belt usage rate in 2007 for drivers of all medium- and heavy-duty trucks and buses combined was 65 percent.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s survey inspired us to conduct our own analysis of data gathered in our repository of 7 million-plus risky driving behaviors, and we found that seat-belt usage rates were even lower among drivers already exhibiting other risky driving behaviors, notes DriveCam Vice President of Safety Services Del Lisk. Only 35 percent of drivers in video meta data we reviewed were constantly wearing seat belts.