Washington, D.C. - As the Virginia legislature is poised this session to vote on bills to upgrade the state's current mandatory seat belt law from secondary enforcement to primary or "standard" enforcement, a new study by the National Safety Council documents the amount of money the state will save in Medicaid costs with passage of a primary belt law for the state.
Commissioned by the National Safety Council and conducted by Preusser Research Group, Inc. of Trumbull, Ct., the study, "Impact of a Primary Seat Belt Law on Virginia's State Medicaid Expenses" (pdf; 1.26MB), found that Virginia could expect to save at least $21.5 million dollars over the next 10 years on its annual budget in medical costs alone by implementing a primary safety belt law in 2004.
Primary seat belt laws enable law enforcement officers to ticket motorists based solely on an observed seat belt violation, just as they do any other motor vehicle law such as a broken tail light. Primary laws cover 60 percent of the U.S. population and are in place in 20 states. Twenty-nine (29) states have weaker secondary seat belt use laws that require officers to stop a vehicle for another violation before ticketing vehicle occupants for failure to wear their seat belt.
The study analyzed Virginia's 2002 Hospital Discharge Data looking only at cases where the primary external cause of injury was a motor vehicle crash. Researchers looked at these costs for three population groups: those currently on Medicaid, those who sustained spinal cord injuries and those who sustained traumatic brain injuries. The later two categories are often associated with motor vehicle crashes and have high on-going costs often billed to the state's Medicaid program.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, safety belts can reduce the risk of death for front seat occupants of passenger cars by 45% and decrease the risk of serious injury for front seat occupants of passenger cars by 50%. Researchers based their estimates of state funded health care costs on an 11% increase in Virginia's seat belt use, the average for states that pass primary seat belt use laws.
"The report shows clearly that Virginia can expect to save at least $21.5 million in state funded medical costs as well as other associated costs by implementation of a primary law," says researcher David F. Preusser, PhD.
Charles A. Hurley, Vice President of the National Safety Council's Transportation Safety Group, says the experience of other states show that passage of primary seat belt usage laws have been instrumental in getting higher risk drivers, like teens and young adults, to buckle up. "Fatality rates for young drivers - including those well into their 20's - are twice those of older drivers. There's no question that more young drivers and passengers buckled up with a primary belt law, and increased seat belt use will save the state not only Medicaid dollars but more importantly, young lives." For the years 1995-2000, only 37% of young drivers and 25% of young passengers killed in crashes in Virginia were buckled up according the government's fatal accident reporting system.
On average, inpatient hospital care costs for an unbelted crash victim are 50% higher than those for a crash victim who was wearing a seat belt. Society picks up 85 percent of those costs, not the crash victim.
Regarding the views of some legislators that primary seat belt laws represent government intrusion, Hurley says, "Some people choose to see a primary seat belt law as the difference between enough government and too much government. We respectfully submit that this yardstick be applied elsewhere - not to such an important public health issue."
The National Safety Council is a nonprofit, nongovernmental, international public service organization dedicated to protecting life and promoting health. Members of NSC include more than 45,000 businesses, labor organizations, schools, public agencies, private groups and individuals. Founded in 1913, and chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1953, the primary focus of the NSC is preventing injuries that occur in workplaces, homes, communities and motor vehicles. For additional information about the National Safety Council, visit www.nsc.org.
For Immediate Release, January 27, 2004
Media Contact: National Safety Council 630-775-2307 media@nsc.org
