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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2002;287:706.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Front-seat drivers and passengers in cars can improve their safety not only by fastening their own seat belts but also by making sure that rear-seat passengers have fastened theirs, according to a new study by Japanese researchers (Lancet. 2002;359:43-44).

Researchers at the University of Tokyo examined data for car-to-car crashes from 1995 to 1999 in which there were at least two rear-seat passengers. Their goal: to determine the risk of death or severe injury during a car crash of drivers and front-seat passengers riding with belted and unbelted back-seat passengers. They found that overall, belted front-seat occupants traveling with rear-seat passengers who weren't wearing seat belts had a two- to three-fold increased risk of injury and a nearly five-fold increased risk of death compared with those whose back-seat traveling companions buckled up.

The researchers also estimated that 79% of deaths of front-seat occupants could have . . . [Full Text of this Article]