Seat Belt Laws Motor vehicle crashes are the number one cause of death for people ages 1-54 in the United States every year. Seat belts are the most effective way to prevent some of these deaths. With that being said, primary seat belt laws should be recognized and made illegal not to wear a seatbelt when riding in a car in all 50 states. While wearing a seat belt, injuries and fatalities are less likely to occur in an accident. Too many people disregard the risks they are taking when they choose not to wear a seatbelt in a car. Statistically, teens have the lowest seat belt use of any age group, but this also results in teens having the highest death rate in a car crash. According to the CDC on “Motor Vehicle Safety”, “55% of the teens who died in a car accident in 2012 were not wearing a seatbelt” (CDC, Motor Vehicle Safety). Most of these deaths also occurred in states that only have secondary enforcement laws, in which an officer can’t pull someone over for not wearing a seatbelt, but if they are pulled over for something else, they can be ticketed for not wearing their seatbelt on a …show more content…
If some of those people involved were to wear seatbelts because stricter laws were enforced, these medical expenses could possibly drop, costing the U.S. much less yearly. The injuries caused by people not using their seatbelts could be avoided, resulting in less money being spent on medical treatment for injuries that could have been avoided by buckling a seatbelt. In the long run, stricter seatbelt laws in all the states could save taxpayers and family members of those hurt a lot of money in medical bills. Not only would these laws save lives, they could potentially save people a lot of