Citation

Houston DJ, Richardson LE. Accid. Anal. Prev. 2002; 34(6): 743-751.

Affiliation

Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 37996-0410, USA. dhouston@utk.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12371779

Abstract

This study explores whether the change of an existing seat belt law from secondary to primary enforcement enhances traffic safety. In particular, we examine traffic fatalities and injuries in California from 1988 to 1997. During the first half of this period, California law provided for secondary enforcement of its mandatory seat belt law, but in 1993 it upgraded the law to primary enforcement. Controlling for the number of motor vehicle collisions, a Box-Tiao intervention analysis of the time series is used to compare the monthly fatalities and injuries before and after the change in the enforcement provision. The results show that California experienced an improvement in traffic safety in terms of a significant reduction in injuries, but the change in enforcement provision had no statistically significant impact on fatalities.