Lewiston’s auto safety coordinator says rear-seat passengers should buckle up, too

The coordinator of Lewiston’s safety belt program has criticized a recent report that says rear-seat lap belts can cause serious injuries.

Barbara C. Fazio is worried the report’s conclusions, which she disagrees with, may cause people to avoid using lap belts altogether.

“You can get injured but the percentage is real low compared to if you didn’t have on a safety belt,’’ said Fazio, who coordinates a federally funded seatbelt research project at Lewiston. “Creating unnecessary fears about rear lap belt use results in an unfortunate decrease in the use of all belt systems.’’

She was referring to a recent report by the Institute for Injury Reduction, an organization founded by a group of lawyers, that indicates rear-seat lap belts cause more than 1,000 serious injuries a year.

The institute’s president, Benjamin Kelley, said in a typical crash, other passengers even those not wearing seatbelts tend to be less seriously injured than a person wearing a lap belt.

Fazio contested this conclusion. “The institute picks out 1,000 serious injuries a year from wearing lap belts. If they were not wearing seatbelts they would have died or suffered more serious injury,’’ she said in an interview last week.

She advised people to continue to wear lap belts, but cautioned they should be properly worn.

“The thing that scares me is people aren’t going to belt their kids up,’’ she said. “They are going to say look at this ... rear lap belts cause X amount of injuries a year.’’

According to the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration, a federal agency, rear lap belts reduce deaths by an estimated 24 to 40 percent, and serious injuries by an estimated 30 to 41 percent.

Lap belts in passenger cars saved about 90 lives and prevented more than 1,400 serious injuries in 1988, the agency calculated.

The most common mistakes people make with lap belts is wearing them loose and too high, Fazio said. This can result in injuries to the intestines, bowel or iliac artery.

These injuries are reduced or eliminated if the belt is worn so that it rests at the top of the thighs and over the bony part of the pelvis.

Lap belts may not be as effective as three-point belts, but they do reduce injuries, Fazio said. They work best in a non-frontal crash, such as a rollover or when a vehicle is hit from the side.

Referring to the institute’s assessment that the majority of victims are children, Fazio said the injuries do not occur because of lap belt use but because they are improperly fastened. “They occur because they are not tight and a child is thrown out against a window or something.’’

She welcomed any move to retrofit rear seats in vehicles with three-point systems, but said it costs $200 to $300.

Lap and shoulder belts are required for rear seats in cars beginning with this model year.

This story was published in the Feb. 11, 1990, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.