Political Quotes

“As provided in our legislation, the Warner-Clinton bill, States can increase seatbelt use either by enacting, as I said, a primary seatbelt law--everybody knows what a primary seatbelt law is and how it works. It means a law enforcement officer can literally stop a vehicle if they observe that the individual is not wearing his or her seatbelt. It is as simple as that. But a State, if they decide not to enact a primary safety belt law, can, by implementing their own strategies, whatever they may be--and there is a lot of innovation out in the States--that would result in a 90-percent safety belt use rate. So that is a challenge to the States. The current national belt use, as I said, is 79 percent. But many States--those that have the primary law are sometimes at 90, or even above 90, but those that do not have the primary seatbelt law are down sometimes in the 60 percentile. It is the weight of the primary States that carries the percentile and brings it up to 79 from those States that don't have an effective law. States with their primary safety belt law have the greatest success for drivers wearing seatbelts. On an average, States with the primary seatbelt law have a 10 to 15 percent higher seatbelt use compared to those with a secondary system. This demonstrates that secondary seatbelt laws are far more limited in their effectiveness than a primary law.”