Following the implementation of compulsory seat belt wearing legislation in Victoria in December 1970, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons established a survey to collect detailed injury and crash data from car accidents in that State. An analysis of the affect of seat belt wearing on severe injuries sustained by car occupants during the first two years of the survey was reported by Cameron and Nelson (1977). Minor injuries were ignored in that analysis. Further work extended that file to cover 8537 occupants injured during the first three years of the survey and the injuries (including minor injuries) were coded on the Abbreviated Injury Scale. This report examines the effect of seat belt wearing on both minor and severe injuries. Some comparisons of injury severity distributions in the Victorian data and in data collected by North American MDAI teams are also made.

VTI 2002.0734: CD