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Date The Honorable ______________ Dear Representative/Senator ___________: I am writing to urge you to support the passage of a primary seat belt law in Massachusetts. The Governor’s Highway Safety Bureau notes that Massachusetts’ seat belt use is only 63% which ranks us near last in the country. Only Mississippi and New Hampshire have a lower seat belt use rate than the Commonwealth. The effort to pass a primary law has passed in the Senate, but failed in a tie vote in the House of Representatives. The predominant argument against its passage has been a civil libertarian belief that there are no consequences to anyone else if one decides not to wear a seat belt. Nothing could be further from the truth. Each day there are needless deaths and there are needless disabling injuries. In 2000, there were 1,027 new head injuries directly related to car crashes that resulted in hospitalizations. There were over 100 new spinal cord injuries from the same etiology. Both of these injuries have a very high correlation with unbelted crashes. Not only are these individuals now disabled, most of them permanently, there are associated long-term health care costs to consider. In 2000, those very injuries cost Medicaid an additional $6 million dollars in acute care expenditures alone. These figures do not take into account, rehabilitation, long-term costs, increasing enrollment in Medicaid and loss of employment. In addition, it is alarming to note that 2,388 persons were ejected from their vehicles in Massachusetts in 2003. That’s nearly seven each day! Ejection is directly related to being unbelted. Since most survive, we all bear the additional burden of costs from emergency response to medical care to Medicaid. This is unacceptable. The SAFE Coalition (Seatbelts Are For Everyone) members are experts in health care and public safety who know first hand the devastating effects of unbelted car crashes. In the current fiscal crisis Massachusetts faces, the primary seat belt law provides a budget neutral means of directly reducing health care expenditures for the Commonwealth. Primary seat belt laws work, and have done so for over twenty years in those states that pass this law. I am eager to hear back from you and hope that you will encourage your colleagues to support this effort. Sincerely,
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