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The paper at hand deals with issues arising from inflated values of safety belt use. The paper addresses and evaluates data leading to strong evidence that safety belt use rates, as reported in crash records, are inflated irrespective of reasons. Equally strong evidence is found that belt use inflation introduces significant distortions in the estimation of casualty rates, and of the effectiveness of various restraints. The cited effects are evidenced both analytically and by reviewing crash records. No fully satisfactory remedy is yet at hand for controlling the cited distortions. However, a heuristically determined blanket deflation appears to rectify most of the ill effects of belt use inflation. It also appears that blanket remedies for belt use inflation, intended to cure inflated values of restraint effectiveness, may introduce adverse side effects on the cited effectiveness.

This paper addresses the crash protection of occupants of the car fleet in transition from the late 1970's to the early 1980's. Three files of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are used: the NASS 1979 to 1983, the PARS 1979 to 1983, and the NCSS 1977 to 1979. Fatalities, injured survivors by severity, and all accident involved car occupants are addressed. Risks of crash and injury outcomes are determined and analyzed as a function of risk influencing factors, especially factors that may vary significantly during the time period under consideration. Ejection risks and ejection patterns are addressed explicitly. Harm, an earlier introduced human casualty integrator, and harm distributions are extensively examined and updated with respect to earlier results. Harm and harm pattern changes, whether statistical fluctuations or systematic variations, are analyzed.