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Backseat Buckling

As I note in Traffic, sitting in the backseat offers a more substantial benefit than front-seat airbags. A piece in Japan’s Daily Yomiuri notes how much safer still that becomes when backseat passengers are belted:

“The number of road traffic deaths in 2008 decreased by 10.3 percent from 2007. The dramatic decrease is partly due to the increased rate of passengers in backseats wearing seat belts, the NPA said.

“In many serious accidents, passengers who were riding in backseats were found to have been thrown through windows. However, statistics show the fatality rate of backseat passengers wearing a seat belt is one-fourth that of those who do not wear a seat belt. Currently, drivers receive a penalty point only when their backseat passengers do not wear seat belts on expressways. However, the NPA is considering penalizing drivers whose passengers do not wear seat belts on all roads.

If most of backseat passengers wear seat belts, the annual number of road traffic deaths will decrease below 5,000,” an NPA senior official said.”

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Traffic safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.

For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.

For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.

Order Traffic from:

Amazon | B&N | Borders
Random House | Powell’s

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Traffic UK
Drive-on-the-left types can order the book from Amazon.co.uk.

For UK publicity enquiries please contact Rosie Glaisher at Penguin.

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