In 2022, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety began evaluating seatbelt reminders in new vehicles. Despite the vast improvements in vehicle safety, auto fatalities in the United States have been trending upward, and about half of those deaths have one thing in common—the person wasn’t wearing their seatbelt.
“We have belt use that is over 90 percent in this country, but still half of the people who are dying in crashes in vehicles are unbelted,” Jessica Jermakian, IIHS’s senior vice president of vehicle research, told Motor1 late last month when I visited the Institute’s Vehicle Research Center in Virginia.
Photo by: Volvo
According to the latest data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for 2024, 48 percent of the 22,713 people killed in auto accidents were unbelted.
The IIHS test assesses the audible and visual seatbelt reminders for front- and second-row seats, with the rating based on factors such as volume, frequency, and duration. For a vehicle to earn a “Good” rating, it must have an audible reminder that lasts 90 seconds or more for unbelted passengers in either row.
This has led many automakers to adopt more persistent—and sometimes aggravating—seatbelt reminders. As of the 2025 model year, nearly 70 percent of the models it tested, and it doesn’t evaluate all new cars, earned a “Good” rating for their systems.
Jermakian said that IIHS’s testing has revealed that more persistent belt reminders do work, getting part-time users, those who forgot or don’t wear a belt in certain circumstances, to buckle up, like those who take short trips or ride in a taxi or Uber.
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