TOKYO, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Front seat passengers in a car, even if they are wearing seat belts, face a significantly high risk of death during a vehicle accident if their rear seat counterparts are not buckled up, according to a new study.
Much has been reported on the importance of front seat passengers wearing seat belts to avoid being thrown from through the vehicle's windshield during an accident. However, little is known about the impact of not wearing a seat belt when riding in the back seat.
"In frontal crashes, unbelted rear seat occupants can be thrown forward, increasing the forces on front seat occupants," researchers from the University of Tokyo wrote.
"So, effectively, the rear seat passengers become missiles, and very substantial ones," Michael Seal, director of the Vehicle Research Institute at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., told United Press International. "Imagine that sitting on you and that's what's happening (during a crash). If you don't do the belt, all bets are off."
Researchers led by Masao Ichikawa of the University of Tokyo studied data on 103,590 front seat occupants who were injured in vehicle-to-vehicle accidents from 1995 to 1999. Of this group, 79,893 were drivers and 29,697 were front seat passengers. A total of 211 drivers and 173 front seat passengers were killed and 1,557 and 1,185 were severely injured, respectively.
Since the researchers did not have complete data on how many total passengers were in each vehicle, they used calculations to determine the risks unrestrained back seat passengers imposed on restrained front seat passengers.
Up to 80 percent of deaths to front seat passengers and drivers could have been prevented had rear seat passengers worn their seat belts, researchers report in the Jan. 5 issue of The Lancet.
The study found during a frontal accident, seat belted drivers had six-fold risk of death if the back seat passenger was unrestrained. Restrained front seat passengers faced a five-fold risk during a frontal accident.
Accidents from the side and rear did not affect the risks to front seat drivers as severely as a frontal impact.
Newer vehicle models feature shoulder and lap strap seat belts in the back seat like the ones used by front seat passengers. They are more effective at keeping the occupant restrained during a crash that just a lap belt.
Seal said it is possible that since many rear seat occupants are children and babies, the effects of them getting thrown into a front seat passenger adult may not be as severe as an adult in the back seat being thrown toward the front.
Regardless of who is riding in the back seat, everyone should be wearing the proper restraints and the problem is not enough do.
"Back seat passengers do not wear their belt as frequently as front seat passengers," David Eby, an associate research scientist at the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute in Ann Arbor told UPI.
It is a common misperception, Eby said, that people believe seat belt safety only applies when they are in the front seat because they mistakenly think "they are safer in the back seat."
Although airbags and seat belts can reduce injury, people still underestimate what can happen to them during an impact, even at a relatively slow speed. They do not understand, Seal said, "the magnitudes of the forces."
(Reported by Katrina Woznicki in Washington)
