Pickup truck drivers least likely to use seat belts, studies show

BOISE – The likelihood of wearing a seat belt, studies show, depends on what you drive. And the least likely to buckle up are people in pickup trucks.

Nationally, an average of 79 percent of people buckle up, but that number drops to 69 percent for pickups.

The disparity is even greater in Idaho, where the latest survey shows overall seat belt use at 74 percent, but just 61.9 percent for pickups, up from 58.4 percent in 2003.

It could be worse – and it has been. As recently as 2000, seat belt use among Idahoans in pickups was only 46 percent.

Mary Hunter, adult protection specialist for the state Office of Traffic and Highway Safety, said, “There are a lot of human tragedies that are needless because they don’t wear their seat belts. … Five people are killed or seriously hurt on our roads every day. Idaho’s fatality rate is 35 percent higher than the national rate.”

North Idaho pickup drivers and passengers rank better than those in some other parts of the state. Their buckle-up rate in the latest report is 63 percent, compared to 79.3 percent for vans and SUVs and 81.3 percent for passenger cars in North Idaho.

The worst numbers in the state are in the Pocatello area, where those in pickups were at 38.1 percent compliance, while overall seat belt use was at 58.1 percent.

The pickup factor is barely noticeable in Washington, where a survey last year found that 92 percent of people in pickups wore seat belts, versus 95 percent in all vehicles. Washington now has the second-highest rate of seat-belt use in America, trailing Hawaii.

Washington officials say the difference is that state’s tough – and controversial – seat belt law. State troopers in Washington this year have written more than 36,000 of the $101 tickets.

The lack of seat belt use by pickup owners is clear enough nationwide that in March, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ran a focus-group study with rural male pickup drivers, who are the least likely Americans to use their seat belts.

Their explanations can be summarized like this: “My truck will protect me.” “I’m just making short trips for work.” “I don’t want to be trapped in a crash.”

Statistically, none of those excuses holds water. In fact, said Hunter, “Seat belts in pickups are even more effective than they are in cars in preventing deaths and serious injuries.”

Unbelted pickup truck occupants are much more likely to die or be seriously injured in crashes, and to be ejected from their vehicles in crashes, which often results in serious injury or death.

“I used to be one of those people that need to be converted,” said Steve Finlay, editor of Ward’s Dealer Business magazine, a national trade magazine for car dealers. “I came up with all the reasons, too. But you see what happens when somebody is not wearing a seat belt, and it makes you pause.”

Finlay has his own theory about why pickup users are less likely to use seat belts. Overall, he said, 52 percent of car buyers are male, and 42 percent are female. (The gender of the other 6 percent isn’t known, he said, though “that’s not a tough question” for buyers to answer.)

“But for pickups, it’s 64.9 percent male,” Finlay said.

Both current and historical statistics, nationally and in Idaho, show females are far more likely to use seat belts than males. Finlay expects the seat belt gap among pickup drivers to drop in the future, as more women buy newer, more refined pickup trucks.

“Women basically are smarter,” he said. “Women are more likely to survive than men. Statistically they do the right things in terms of lifestyle, and wearing a seat belt is one of them.”