Buckle Up! Seatbelt Laws in Arizona
Traffic-related injuries are the leading cause of all injury deaths in America. Every nine seconds, someone is injured in a traffic crash and every 13 minutes someone is killed.
Research shows that many part-time and non-belt users fear of a citation and significant fine outweighs their fear of being injured or killed when unbelted in a crash. Every hour someone dies in America simply because they didn’t buckle up. Failure to buckle up contributes to more fatalities than any other single traffic safety-related behavior.
Despite terrible traffic problems such as aggressive driving, increasing seat belt use is still the single most effective thing we can do to save lives and reduce injuries on America’s roadways. We all know that wearing a seatbelt helps to prevent serious injuries, but just what are the seatbelt laws in Arizona?
A recent survey has shown that 86.6% of vehicle occupants actually use their seat belt, compared to 93.3% in 2005.
Arizona is a second enforcement state. This secondary enforcement law only allows a police officer to issue a ticket for someone not wearing a seat belt if the driver has been pulled over for some other offense. In contrast, a primary enforcement seatbelt law means that a police officer can pull a vehicle over and issue a ticket just because a driver or passenger is not wearing a seatbelt. In 2013, 31 states and the District of Columbia had primary enforcement seatbelt laws.