title: Seat belt use by police: should they click it?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of mortality in the United States, although seat belts significantly reduce the risk of death. Police officers do not always wear a seat belt. A retrospective study was conducted on all crashes that involved marked police vehicles in the United States and included a death in any of the involved vehicles.
  
  
  METHODS
  For the years 1997 through 2001, crash data were collected and analyzed from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System that included an isolated or multiple vehicle crash with a marked police vehicle and a resulting death in any of the involved vehicles. Motorcycle, aircraft, and undercover police crashes were excluded from this study. Only the occupants of the police vehicle involved in the crash were included in the study. In addition, crashes involving police vehicles where the status of seat belt use by the occupants of the police vehicle was unknown were also excluded.
  
  
  RESULTS
  When the crashes occurred, 59.9% of the officers were responding to nonemergency calls, 79.8% of the occupants were wearing their seat belts, and 79.5% survived. Of the 104 occupants that were not belted, 42 (40.4%) died in the crash, compared with 64 (15.5%) of the 412 belted occupants (risk ratio, 2.6; odds ratio, 3.7).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The risk of death was 2.6 times higher for unbelted occupants of police vehicles than for belted occupants in our study population. In addition, seat belt use was not statistically related to emergency versus nonemergency calls.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Erie County Medical Center, Buffalo, New York 14215, USA. djehle@ecmc.edu
authors.forename: Dietrich
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: von Kuenssberg Jehle
authors.forename: David G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Wagner
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mayrose
authors.forename: Usman
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Hashmi
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000401:mortality* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D006801:Humans; D016495:Police; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012622:Seat Belts / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology