01-001 · EVIDENCE A · SOURCE-SENSITIVE
Always wear seat belts, both front and back
系安全带，前排后排都系
No cost at all. It only adds about 2 seconds to every trip.
Wearing a seat belt in the front seat cuts the risk of dying in a crash by roughly half. For drivers and passengers in light trucks, the reduction is about 60%. Among U.S. crash victims in 2022 whose seat belt use was documented, half were not wearing one.
A
Move “Always wear seat belts, both front and back” to Future Me's calendar
The excuse
The routine already works until the day the source says it may not.
What feels good now
Today I keep a few minutes and avoid interrupting my default routine.
What the source says
The source summarizes the return this way: “Wearing a seat belt in the front seat cuts the risk of dying in a crash by roughly half. For drivers and passengers in light trucks, the reduction is about 60%. Among U.S. crash victims in 2022 whose seat belt use was documented, half were not wearing one.” Evidence grade A. The original states the population, caveats, and sources; this is not a personal forecast.
Use the original facts and limits. For an urgent medical, safety, financial, or legal issue, contact a qualified local professional or service.
THE ENGLISH EDITION
Original recommendation and evidence
1. Always wear seat belts, both front and back
Cost: No cost at all. It only adds about 2 seconds to every trip.
In plain terms: Wearing a seat belt in the front seat cuts the risk of dying in a crash by roughly half. For drivers and passengers in light trucks, the reduction is about 60%. Among U.S. crash victims in 2022 whose seat belt use was documented, half were not wearing one.
Benefit: According to NHTSA estimates, seat belts lower the risk of fatal injury for front‑seat occupants of cars by 45% and for those in light trucks by 60%. In 2022, half of the U.S. fatalities in passenger cars had no recorded seat belt use. The World Health Organization states that seat belts can reduce the risk of death inside a vehicle by up to 50%. WHO also estimates that in 2021, 248,099 people died in road crashes in China, which translates to 17.4 deaths per 100,000 people.
Evidence grade: A
Sources: NHTSA (2024). Occupant Protection in Passenger Vehicles: 2022 Data (DOT HS 813 573). <https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813573>; WHO (2025). Road traffic injuries fact sheet. <https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries>; WHO GHO RS_196/RS_198 (China, 2021). <https://ghoapi.azureedge.net/api/RS_196?$filter=SpatialDim%20eq%20%27CHN%27>
Notes: Seat belts must be worn in the back seat as well. In the same report, 60% of rear‑seat occupants killed in crashes were not wearing belts. The 45% and 60% figures are NHTSA estimates derived from crash‑database analysis (Kahane 2015), not from randomized trials. The Chinese death toll cited by WHO is a projection and is several times higher than official police statistics; the two figures cover different populations, so only the WHO estimate is used here.
Read the complete Chinese source and notes
1. 系安全带，前排后排都系
成本: 不花钱。每次上车多花 2 秒。
说人话: 坐前排系上安全带，出车祸时被撞死的概率大约降一半。坐轻型卡车前排的降六成。美国 2022 年死在车里的人，能查到系没系带的，有一半没系。
收益: 美国交通安全主管部门（NHTSA）估计，系安全带能让轿车前排乘员受致命伤的风险下降 45%。轻型卡车前排下降 60%。2022 年美国死在乘用车（载人的小汽车）里的人当中，能查到系没系带的，有 50% 没系。世界卫生组织（WHO）的口径是，安全带让车内人员的死亡风险最多降低 50%。WHO 估计中国 2021 年死于道路交通事故的有 248,099 人，相当于每 10 万人里死 17.4 人
证据等级: A
来源: NHTSA (2024). Occupant Protection in Passenger Vehicles: 2022 Data (DOT HS 813 573). <https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813573> ; WHO (2025). Road traffic injuries fact sheet. <https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries> ; WHO GHO RS_196/RS_198 (China, 2021). <https://ghoapi.azureedge.net/api/RS_196?$filter=SpatialDim%20eq%20%27CHN%27>
备注: 后排也要系。同一份报告里，第二排被撞死的人有 60% 没系带。45%、60% 这两个数，是美国交通安全主管部门（NHTSA）拿事故数据库算出来的估计（引 Kahane 2015），不是随机分组的试验。WHO 那个中国死亡人数是推算出来的，比公安交管登记的数字高好几倍。两边统计的范围不一样，这里只用 WHO 的口径。
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