Key finding
Front-seat seat-belt use reduces fatal/nonfatal injury risk by ~60%; trauma database mortality OR ~0.49 vs no restraint
Evidence & causal status
Strong for injury mortality
Strong causal/interventional evidence for crash injury prevention
Caveats & limitations
Reliability / bias notes: Crash-conditioned evidence; risk-taking behaviours correlated with non-use
This describes a population-level association from published research. It is not a prediction about any one individual, and association is not the same as causation unless stated otherwise above.