Seat belt legislation and seat belt use: effects on differences related to sex, social class and smoking.

As part of a larger study of preventive health behavior, 177 adults answered a question about how often they wore seat belts both before and after seat belt legislation was introduced in Britain. Analyses by smoking status, sex and socioeconomic status (SES) showed that all groups increased the frequency of self-reported seat belt use after the law was introduced. Regression analyses showed that before the law, SES, sex and general preventive behavior were significant predictors of seat belt use, while only SES was a significant predictor of post-legislation seat belt use. Overall the results suggested that seat belt legislation was effective in promoting seat belt use since most of the demographic differences were eliminated by the legislation.