GM aims to buckle up more Americans: 'Almost half are not wearing seat belts'

General Motors (GM) is introducing a new “Buckle to Drive" system to encourage seat belt use among drivers.

GM’s Buckle to Drive system will allow a vehicle to start but won’t shift into gear for a minimum of 20 seconds to remind drivers to buckle up.

“The statistics show that of all the fatalities we see on the road, almost half are not wearing seat belts,” Tricia Morrow, safety strategy engineer for GM’s Chevrolet division, told NBC News.

Currently, Buckle to Drive only activates if a vehicle is being operated while in Teen Driver Mode, but plans to have it activated at all times are in the pipeline, NBC News reported. The automaker previously dubbed it as Seat Belt Assurance, which was tested in fleets of 2014 Chevrolet Cruze.

GM originally had this idea in the 1970s and has been in support of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) campaign, according to General Motors website. For two years, “the agency added a compliance option for passenger vehicles manufactured between August 15, 1973, and August 14, 1975, that allowed the use of an interlock system that prevented the engine from starting if any front-seat occupant was not buckled up,” according to Federal Register.  

U.S. traffic deaths are at a 15-year high, and experts are narrowing down the issue to a decline in drivers wearing their seat belts, Reuters reported. “Lack of belt use is one of our biggest unsolved safety problems,” Russ Rader, senior vice president with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, told NBC News.