Atlanta - The Injury Prevention Research Center at Emory (IPRCE) has been awarded $302,150 from the Georgia Governor's Office of Highway Safety (GOHS) to measure rates of seat belt use and driver distraction in Georgia this year. The funding will help provide insight into the factors that affect safe driving behaviors across the state, including gender, race/ethnicity and age group.
Between May and August 2026, IPRCE will send trained observers to 400 sites in 20 counties across Georgia to observe seat belt use. Observers will document whether drivers and front-seat passengers are wearing seat belts. Rates of driver distraction will also be measured, including hand-held device use. This will be the fifth consecutive year that IPRCE has estimated seat belt use rates using roadside observations.
"The rate of seat belt use for drivers and right front passengers in Georgia during daylight hours was 87.9% in 2025, which is effectively unchanged from the 2024 rate," says Jonathan Rupp, PhD, the director of IPRCE at Emory University School of Medicine and professor and vice chair for innovation and discovery in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Emory. "In contrast, rates of hand-held cell phone use by Georgia drivers significantly decreased to 5.1% in 2025 from 6.6% in 2024. We hope the data will help the state target efforts to increase seat belt use and reduce distraction."
"Innovative projects like this are designed to help Georgia and our nation to reach the realistic goal of zero traffic deaths by the middle of this century," says Allen Poole, director of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety. "Each life saved on our roads is one less family that will have to live with the pain of losing a loved one whose life was taken from them in a traffic crash that was completely preventable," explains Poole.
In 2025, the findings on seat belt use by front seat occupants in Georgia show:
- Seat belt use was higher for right-front passengers (92.2%) than drivers (87.0%).
- Seat belt use was highest in Minivans (95.7%) and lowest in trucks (79.0%).
- Seat belt use was higher for women (90.7%) than for men (85.5%).
- Seat belt use was highest among those 8-15 years of age (92.4%) and those over 70 years (92.1%), followed by those under 8 years old (89.8%), those 25-69 years (87.5%), and those 16-24 years (86.0%).
In 2025, findings on hand-held device use in Georgia show:
- 1% of drivers were observed to be texting, dialing or talking on a hand-held device.
- Hand-held device use was higher for men (5.4%) than for women (4.7%).
- Hand-held device use in metro Atlanta was 5.9% and is higher than other areas of the state.
Roadside observations of seat belt use will be performed in the following 20 Georgia counties starting in May 2026: Cobb, DeKalb, Early, Floyd, Gwinnett, Habersham, Haralson, Harris, Hart, Monroe, Morgan, Murray, Peach, Polk, Richmond, Rockdale, Spalding, Thomas, Ware and Worth.
About IPRCE
Founded in 1993, the Injury Prevention Research Center at Emory is a collaborative, multi-institutional research center working to mitigate the impact of injury in our communities. Using a data-driven and participatory research approach, IPRCE address the most significant injury concerns in Georgia and the Southeast region. The center has taskforce workgroups addressing drug safety, fall prevention, transportation safety, traumatic brain injury prevention, and violence prevention. Learn more about IPRCE at https://iprce.emory.edu/.
