Nearly a third of the nation’s traffic deaths happened in states such as Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, Florida and Tennessee. About 64 percent of those accidents happened on rural roads from 1996 to 2000.
Glad I don’t do that much driving on “rural” roads.
This isn’t much of a surprise:
Most of the accidents involved late-night drivers who were either tired or drunk. The accidents happened mainly on weekends and involved young males between 16 and 25.
The study also found that drivers rarely wore seatbelts or in some cases, such as for pickup drivers in Georgia, were exempt from wearing seatbelts.
Georgia pickup drivers are exempt from wearing seatbelts? Why? I’m doubting they’re any less accident prone than automobile drivers. That makes almost as much sense as motorcycle riders not wearing helmets.
Georgia pickup drivers are exempt from wearing seatbelts?
I’ll bet it’s not an explicit exemption; I’d bet that the Georgia seatbelt statute applies on its face only to automobiles, and pickup trucks aren’t defined as “automobiles” for the purposes of applying the statute.