Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – Specific condition
Reexamination Certificate
2002-08-20
2004-08-31
Wu, Daniel J. (Department: 2632)
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
Specific condition
C340S667000, C340S691600, C340S539100, C340S870030, C340S870030, C340S426130, C340S457100, C180S271000, C180S273000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06784803
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to vehicle safety and, more specifically, apparatuses and methods for monitoring and detecting seat belt usage.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
Many states now have mandatory seat belt laws, but enforcement of seat belt laws has been ineffective. Enforcement of seat belt laws has been performed predominantly by visual detection by police personnel or by admission of violators. Obviously, visual detection from a distance becomes almost impossible and too subjective. Even at close distances, visual detection is subjective and prone to challenge in a court of law. Furthermore in inclement weather or under the cover of darkness, visual detection is nearly impossible. In contrast, radar guns that are used to detect vehicles traveling at excessive speeds and above the speed limit are reliable and not as prone to challenges in court. To date, detection devices, similar to radar guns, are not available for detecting seat belt usage.
Numerous sources indicate that seat belt usage is the single most effective piece of safety gear in vehicles. Auto industry employees, law enforcement personnel, the United States Department of Transportation (hereinafter “USDOT”), the Federal Highway and National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (hereinafter “NHTSA”) have emphasized that the use of seat belts remain the single most important safety factor for saving lives in a crash. The USDOT, Federal Highway and NHTSA have indicated that the largest single issue with them is preventing injuries, saving lives and saving money via seat belt usage. The USDOT and/or NHTSA have reported that “[s]afety belts, when used, reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent. Recent NHTSA analyses indicate an overall fatality-reducing effectiveness for air bags of 12 percent.” In DOT HS 809 327 Traffic Safety Facts 2000 Occupant Protection, it indicates that seat belts are three and one-half times more effective than air bags in reducing fatal injuries. In DOT HS 809 349 November 2001, Norman Mineta, United States Secretary of Transportation, emphatically summarized the above in his Fourth Report to Congress, dated November 2001, “[n]o other transportation initiative has greater potential for reducing deaths and injuries of Americans of all ages and races, which is why the Buckle Up America Campaign is so very, very important.”
In TEA 21 Grants Information, NHTSA has printed and released information that indicates that for an average of one to four percentage points increase in seat belt usage rates, 232 to 940 lives would be saved annually; 5,700 to 23,000 non-fatal injuries would be prevented; and $64 million to $258 million in medical costs would be reduced. Significantly, this is for a nominal increase in percentage of seat belt usage, or specifically from one to four percentage points. In TEA 21 Grant Information, it was reported that a study conducted by NHTSA revealed that the average in-patient cost for crash victims, who were not using seat belts, was 55 percent higher than for those who used their seat belts.
To further illustrate the significance of the staggering potential for improvement with seat belt usage, Norman Mineta reported in his Fourth Report to Congress, see TEA 21 Grants Information, that “[t]he average inpatient hospital charges for an unbelted driver exceed the inpatient, hospital charges of a belted driver by $5,000. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that if the seat belt use rate for front seat passengers in automobiles and light trucks increased to 90 percent, Medicare and Medicaid alone would save $356 million each year. If the national seat belt use rate increased from 68 percent to 90 percent, over 5,500 additional lives would be saved and over 132,000 injuries would be prevented each year, resulting in an economic savings of about $8.8 billion annually.”
Newspaper articles throughout the country regularly report tragic accidents resulting in serious injury and death that occur could have been prevented if the occupant(s) had been wearing a seat belt. The State Journal Register, Springfield, Ill., dated Jan. 1, 2002 reported a fatal crash that took the lives of two Riverton High School teenage youths, and specifically pointed out that they weren't wearing seat belts. In the same newspaper dated Feb. 15, 2002, it was reported that a young, twenty-five year old professional baseball player, in only his second year of major league baseball, was tragically killed along with his twenty-three year old friend. A third occupant in the car was the only one out of the three that was wearing a seat belt and the only one that lived. During the accident, the other two occupants were ejected from the vehicle and died.
These examples are a mere sample and consistent with statistics that are provided by the NHTSA. In TEA 21 Grants Information, it was reported that “[i]n fatal crashes, 75 percent of passenger car occupants who were totally ejected from the vehicle were killed. Safety belts are effective in preventing total ejections: only 1 percent of the occupants reported to have been using restraints were totally ejected, compared with 22 percent of the unrestrained occupants.”
In an Associated Press release, dated Feb. 28, 2002, an article appeared in the Springfield, Illinois State Journal Register titled, “Government backs away from ‘unrealistic’ seat belt use goal.” Jeffrey Runge, head of the NHTSA, told a Senate Appropriations panel, in summarization, that seat belt usage has not met standards set by the previous Presidential Administration. Mr. Runge's suggestion was to set more realistic goals. The decision was criticized by Senator Patty Murray, who leads the transportation subcommittee, for setting lower expectations. “I believe in realistic goals, but I also believe when you lower your goal like that you send a very bad message, Murray, D-Wash., told Runge.”
It has been expressed that the best way to increase seat belt usage rates by any significant levels is by further innovative techniques. In further published information released by USDOT—NHTSA on a Web site dated June 2001, it was reported that a key to obtaining higher seat belt usage rates is to have a law enforcement centerpiece for better enforcement. In DOT HS 809 291, dated June 2001, it was reported that “[a] high profile enforcement effort is one of the best ways to increase seat belt use. No other intervention—except for passage of the law itself—consistently shows equally powerful results.” Further, the reason these efforts usually work is simple: “if people perceive they are likely to get a ticket for not wearing a seat belt, they are much more likely to buckle up. Safety advocates have a powerful new weapon in their arsenal—law enforcement's ability to pull over a motorist simply for violating the seat belt law. Yet, the power behind the law is not so much in the action itself, it is in how a standard enforcement law can increase a person's perceived risk of being pulled over for not being buckled up.” The statements on this Web site, in part, are describing the advocacy of a primary enforcement law where a state has a law that a person can be pulled over simply for violating the seat belt law, as opposed to what is called secondary enforcement law states where an enforcement officer has to have another reason for pulling a person over before being allowed to write a citation for a seat belt violation. However, it still remains that police or law enforcement officials do not have monitoring or detection devices for seat belt violations. This would lead to the prior mentioned actions of motorist's perception that they are more likely to get pulled over and ticketed for not using a seat belt. The power of a new enforcement effort in this manner would not be so much in the action itself, but in how that action would increase a person's perceived risk of being pulled over for not wearing a seat belt
Hypke George E.
Walker Robert R.
Chambers David A.
Haldiman Robert C.
Husch & Eppenberger LLC
Nguyen Tai T.
Seatbelt Safety First--LLC
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