Media Contact:
Karen Twigg
517-355-2281
12/10/97
MSU STUDY REVEALS SEAT BELTS PLAY ONLY CAMEO ROLES IN TOP FILMS
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Someone call Tom Cruise. Based on safety belt use in the top movies of 1996, buckling up on the silver screen seems like "Mission: Impossible."
A Michigan State University study shows that only 14 percent of passengers and 23 percent of drivers portrayed in the top 50 box office movies of 1996 wore safety belts. The results reflect a disparity between real life and film fiction since surveys show 68 percent of Americans regularly wear safety belts.
"With less than one in four drivers and only one in seven passengers protecting themselves, the movie portrayals are out of line with the law and with how people actually drive and ride," said Bradley S. Greenberg, University Distinguished Professor of Telecommunication and Communication and the study's director. "These same movies show young adults as the least likely to wear safety belts, in both the driver and passenger seats."
"Hollywood has been urged in the past to use a little restraint in its portrayal of such things as sex and violence," said Phil Haseltine, president of the American Coalition for Traffic Safety, Inc (ACTS). "But, it should use some restraints on its characters. They need to buckle up."
The use of airbags and child restraint devices also were examined and found to be almost completely absent from all the movies analyzed. One infant appeared in a vehicle in one of the movies and the infant was not restrained.
The study also revealed that drivers and passengers portrayed in films rated G and PG wore their safety belts twice as often as characters in films rated PG-13 and R. Despite the increase in safety belt use in films geared toward the family, Greenberg believes Hollywood should better reinforce the importance of buckling up.
"Seat belt use is mandatory for drivers and for front-seat passengers in 49 states, but movie heroes, heroines and villains don't abide by that rule," Greenberg said. "And those portraying characters in their teens and 20s, the age group which comparatively has the worst motor vehicle accident rates and the most motor vehicle deaths, are least likely to be seen wearing safety belts in the movies."
Using a grant from ACTS, Greenberg analyzed all the driving incidents in 50 of 1996's top box office movies. The 50 films selected were among the top 64 in terms of ticket sales. Science fiction, period films and animated films such as "Star Trek: First Contact," "Sense and Sensibility" and "Toy Story," were not included in the study.
The other key findings of the MSU study were:
-- Only 9 percent of passengers and 10 percent of drivers in their teens or 20s wore safety belts.
-- Only 6 percent of back seat passengers were buckled up, compared with 20 percent of front seat passengers.
-- Drivers were more likely to wear seat belts if there was more than one passenger in the car.
-- If the vehicle was a sedan, 23 percent of the passengers and 29 percent of the drivers buckled up, compared with 12 percent and 19 percent in vans, convertibles, and pickup trucks.
-- 77 percent of the drivers and 58 percent of the passengers were men.
-- Women and men were equal in their use of safety belts.
-- 78 percent of the drivers and 82 percent of the passengers were Caucasian; 19 percent of the drivers and 16 percent of the passengers were African-American; no other minority was found in more than 1 percent of either role.
Ironically, among the movies examined, "Dead Man Walking" portrayed one of the highest ratios of driving incidents to seatbelt use. Of the six driving incidents depicted, drivers were buckled up in five.
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[EDITOR'S NOTE: For a copy of the complete study, please contact Karen Twigg, MSU Media Communications, 517-355-2281.]
HERE'S A SNEAK PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS
SEATBELTS ON TV: THE SEQUEL
Who on "ER" buckles up in the car?
The next time "X Files" agents Mulder and Scully get in their car, they better buckle up - someone is watching. No, not aliens, an MSU professor.
Using a grant from the American Coalition for Traffic Safety, Inc., Bradley S. Greenberg, University Distinguished Professor of Telecommunication and Communication, will monitor two weeks of prime time TV to determine the use of seat belts, airbags and child restraints.
"People often use TV to model behaviors in their own lives," Greenberg said. "When they see a television hero or heroine use their seatbelt, it is a reminder that they also need to wear their seatbelt."
On average, two-thirds of drivers buckle up regularly. Greenberg says analyzing every primetime cable and broadcast television driving incident for two weeks will determine what that proportion is for TV drivers. The study also will monitor the seatbelt use of passengers.
By the way, Dr. Quinn and Homer Simpson are off the hook; the study won't monitor period pieces or cartoons.
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