includes both regional and national legislation. * - actually only vehicles registered after 15 June 1976; in previous registered vehicles fitting is optional † - required by the law, but no penalty for violation at the time ‡ - required by the law, but low enforcement ♣ - definitely introduced by this date, possibly earlier Effects Studies by road safety authorities conclude that seat belt legislation has reduced the number of casualties in road accidents. Experiments using both crash test dummies and human cadavers also indicated that wearing seat belts should lead to reduced risk of death and injury in car crashes. Studies of accident outcomes suggest that fatality rates among car occupants are reduced by between 30 and 50 percent if seat belts are worn. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that death risks for a driver wearing a lap-shoulder seat belt are reduced by 48 percent. The same study indicated that in 2007, an estimated 15,147 lives were saved by seat belts in the United States and that if seat belt use were increased to 100 percent, an additional 5024 lives would have been saved. An earlier statistical analysis by the NHTSA claimed that seat belts save over 10,000 lives every year in the US. According to a more recent fact sheet produced by the NHTSA: "In 2012, seat belts saved an estimated 12,174 lives among passenger vehicle occupants 5 and older. [...] Research has found that lap/shoulder seat belts, when used, reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45% and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50%. [...] Research on the effectiveness of child safety seats has found them to reduce the risk of fatal injury by 71% for infants (younger than 1 year old) and by 54% for toddlers (1 to 4 years old) in passenger cars." By 2009, despite large increases in population and the number of vehicles, road deaths in Victoria had fallen below 300, less than a third of the 1970 level, the lowest since records were kept, and far below the per capita rate in jurisdictions such as the United States. This reduction was generally attributed to aggressive road safety campaigns beginning with the seat belt laws. A 2008 study in the Journal of Health Economics found that mandatory seat belt laws in the U.S. "significantly increased seatbelt use among high school age youths