wearing a seatbelt became a law in california on december 1, 1984.
when did wearing a seatbelt become a law in california?
december 1, 1984
the film, shot entirely in black and white (save for a streak of red in the closing shot), shows four friends driving along an ordinary street. the driver and the passenger sitting behind him are not wearing their seatbelts. when the car crashes into another vehicle ahead, computer imagery shows the unrestrained back seat passenger morphing into an elephant to demonstrate that in a collision at 30 miles per hour, a passenger not wearing a seatbelt can be thrown forward at the force of 3 and a half tons, equivalent to an elephant charging directly at the person in front. the weight of the "elephant" forces the driver through the windscreen, and the front seat passenger gapes in horror as the camera closes in on the driver's body and the wreckage of the car.
elephant (1993 film)
a 2001 analysis of us crash data aimed to establish the effects of seatbelt legislation on driving fatalities and found that previous estimates of seatbelts effectiveness had been significantly overstated. according to the analysis, seatbelts decreased fatalities by 1.35% for each 10% increase in seatbelt use. the study controlled for endogenous motivations of seat belt use, because that creates an artificial correlation between seat belt use and fatalities, leading to the conclusion that seatbelts cause fatalities. for example, drivers in high risk areas are more likely to use seat belts, and are more likely to be in accidents, creating a non-causal correlation between seatbelt use and mortality. after accounting for the endogeneity of seatbelt usage, cohen and einav found no evidence that the risk compensation effect makes seatbelt wearing drivers more dangerous, a finding at variance with other research.
seat belt