The Region V Office of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has named Wayne State ’s Transportation Research Center as the recipient of their Buckle Up America Safety Belt Award. 

          The Safety Belt Award recognizes that Wayne State achieved a safety belt use rate of 90 percent during the months of October and November in 2005. 

          Kathy Farnum, manager of the Planning and Program Operations Section at the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning, will present the award to Wayne State Prof. Tapan Datta on Tuesday, Dec. 20 at Wayne State . Datta is director of the Wayne State Transportation Research Center .  

         Approximately 40,000 people die each year in automobile crashes and hundreds of thousands are injured. Nationally, increasing the safety belt use rate from 68 percent to 90 percent would reduce child fatalities by 25 percent, save an estimated 5,536 lives and prevent 132,670 injuries – an economic savings of approximately $8.8 billion per year. 

         NHTSA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation, has implemented the Buckle Up America Safety Belt Award to recognize and support efforts throughout the country to attain high safety belt use rates. The purpose of the Buckle Up America Safety Belt Award is to showcase the leaders so that others may strive to achieve high levels of safety belt use in an effort to save lives, reduce injuries and minimize economic costs associated with automobile crashes.