Buckling down on buckling up.

• Author: Teigen, Anne
• Position: TRENDS & TRANSITIONS

Seat belts saved more than 304,670 lives from 1975 to 2012, and increasingly strict state seat belt laws are at least part of the reason, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Seat belts also spared the country $1.6 trillion in medical care, lost productivity and other injury-related costs during roughly the same years, the agency estimates.

Thirty-three states have primary seat belt laws, which allow police to stop and ticket drivers if they or their passengers are not buckled up. Another 16 states have secondary seat belt laws, meaning drivers and occupants can be cited for failure to wear seat belts only if the officer has pulled the car over for another infraction.

Primary law opponents often argue they infringe upon personal freedoms and can result in racial profiling.

Still, the number of states that adopted primary seat belt laws almost doubled from 2001 to 2012. At roughly the same time, national seat belt use has increased from 73 percent to 86 percent. In states with primary seat belt laws, use averaged 90 percent in 2012, compared to 78 percent in states with secondary laws, the traffic safety adminstration said.

West Virginia, the most recent state to enact a primary law, has seen the biggest increase in...