Despite encouraging their children to buckle up, many adults are not following their own advice.

A new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that 91 percent of adults wear their seat belts in the driver or front passenger seats, but only 72 percent do in the rear seats. Moreover, only 57 percent use the belts in hired vehicles like taxis or ride sharing cars.

“When we asked people why they were less likely to buckle up, a quarter of the respondents told us that it’s safer in the back seat, so they don’t need to buckle up,” Jessica Jermakian, an IIHS senior research engineer, told CBS.

It’s true that in cars from the ’60s and ’70s, the back seat is generally the safest place. However, the belts, tensioners, airbags, and vehicle designs of the modern era remove any disadvantage the front seats once had. While experts still consider the rear seats to be somewhat safer, a seat belt is still necessary.

“Even if you’re in the back seat, the laws of physics are not suspended,” Jermakian warns. “You still need to buckle up in order to get the best protection in a crash.”

Crash test footage reveals that an unrestrained passenger in the back seat can slam against the front seats. That sort of collision could injure passengers anywhere in the vehicle.

In response to questions about ride sharing, four out of five adults explained that they don’t wear a seat belt because they are only traveling short distances.

“That statistic [about the risk of a crash] doesn’t change just because you’re in a ride share or a taxi,” said Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association. “We need rear-seat passengers to understand that seat belts are critical for them, too.”

Every state except New Hampshire requires adults to wear seat belts in the front seat. Only 29 states have laws that extend to the back seat as well.

About half of all fatalities in car crashes each year could have been prevented if the victim had worn their seat belt. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that seat belts saved nearly 14,000 lives in 2015 alone.

Delaney Cruickshank

Delaney Cruickshank is a Staff Writer at Law Street Media and a Maryland native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in History with minors in Creative Writing and British Studies from the College of Charleston. Contact Delaney at DCruickshank@LawStreetMedia.com.

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More women than men are paying increased attention to politics after Donald Trump’s election, according to new data about political attentiveness.

Nine months after an election largely defined by its historic gender gap, survey data from the Pew Research Center shows that 58 percent of women say they are “paying increased attention to politics since Trump’s election,” compared with only 46 percent of men.

Overall, 52 percent of the population said they are paying more attention, while 33 percent say they are paying about the same amount of attention, and 13 percent admitted to being less attentive.

“There are similarly wide gender gaps in heightened interest to politics among members of both parties,” according to the Pew. “Sixty-three percent of Democratic women say they are more attentive to politics, compared with 51 percent of Democratic men. Among Republicans, 54 percent of women and 43 percent of men say the same.”

Pew conducted the survey between June 27 and July 9, speaking with 2,505 adults in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

The Gender Gap

Women paying more attention to politics has translated into on-the-ground political activism, according to the data. Seventeen percent of women say they have attended a political rally, event, or protest; 12 percent of men say the same.

It’s likely that a large number of these women were among the estimated 5 million who came out for women’s marches that swept the nation after Inauguration Day.

Education level also appeared to make a difference–the subgroup of the population most likely to have attended a protest is women with post-graduate degrees, with 43 percent having participated.

Out of the total 15 percent of the population who have attended such events, the vast majority (67 percent) did so “in opposition to Trump or his policies,” compared  to the mere 11 percent of those who said they’ve attended a political event in support of the president.

Trump Talk Ending Friendships

The majority of Americans (59 percent) find talking politics with someone who has differing opinions than them on the president to be a “stressful and frustrating” experience. Only 35 percent of the population says it is “interesting and informative” to engage in such conversations.

Women tend to be more frustrated with these conversations–64 percent say they are stressful, compared to 54 percent of men sharing that view.

Going beyond just conversations, about one-in-five survey respondents said that knowing a friend voted for Trump would put a strain on their friendship. However, only 7 percent said that knowing a friend had voted for Hillary Clinton would negatively affect their friendship.

The numbers are even more stark when looking at a breakdown by political affiliation and ideology. Thirty-five percent of Democrats said a friend’s Trump vote would put a strain on the friendship, while only 13 percent of Republicans said the same about a friend #withher. For the Democrats who consider themselves to be liberal, rather than moderate or conservative, 47 percent said their friendships would be strained by a vote for Trump.

A Country Not So Divided

Looking past politics, most Democrats (59 percent) and Republicans (56 percent) said that members of the opposing party probably share their other values and goals.

The ideological group most likely to feel this way is moderate and liberal Republicans, 73 percent of whom said Democrats likely shared their non-political goals and values. These survey questions were only asked of partisan-identifying respondents, not those who said they leaned toward one party.

Click here for the full survey report and methodology explanation from Pew Research Center.

Avery Anapol

Avery Anapol is a blogger and freelancer for Law Street Media. She holds a BA in journalism and mass communication from the George Washington University. When she’s not writing, Avery enjoys traveling, reading fiction, cooking, and waking up early. Contact Avery at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Whenever new research on sexual assault–particularly on college campuses–comes out, it often reiterates the same alarming conclusions from past surveys. Findings like roughly one in five female undergraduate students experience some sort of sexual assault, the fact that most cases of sexual assault are not reported to police or campus authorities, and the relatively high rate of victimization among transgender and gender non-conforming students have been supported by several surveys. However, a recent study involving 27 universities in the American Association of Universities (AAU) confirmed several of these established findings on sexual assault, but it did so in a way that is significantly more beneficial for the participating schools.

The group of 27 schools in the AAU surveyed their students to get a better understanding of sexual assault victimization as well as students’ perception of risks, available resources, and their trust. The combined results are not surprising–23 percent of undergraduate women and five percent of undergraduate men reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact (ranging from touching to penetration). This is consistent with recent findings from a Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll as well the findings of other national surveys. But what is unique about the AAU study is the fact that it looks at individual universities to see how each is doing, which according to the researchers is a very important way of looking at the problem.

The study stressed that while the average rate of victimization for women is 23.1 percent, the rates for individual schools vary across a wide range. Among the schools studied, the victimization rates for women varied from 13 percent at California Institute of Technology to 30 percent at the University of Michigan and the University of Southern California (for a full breakdown of each school’s statistics see the Washington Post article).

Colleges typically have a very difficult time determining exactly how the issue of sexual assault presents itself on their campuses. With a few exceptions, colleges and universities could previously only use national statistics to understand the problem. Now, the participating schools can see exactly how their students feel about the threats and risks associated with sexual assault on campus, and even more importantly, students’ perception of how their school is handling the problem.

The fact that responses varied widely among universities–particularly those in the AAU, which is comprised mostly of elite schools–indicates that it is important to look at each school individually. Moreover, having a measure that allows for comparison can help administrators and officials understand how their school is doing relative to others.

Although the AAU study is not nationally representative, it still provides some of the best data on TGQN (transgender, genderqueer, non-conforming, questioning, and not an identity not listed) students to date. Nancy Deutsch, a professor at the University of Virginia and a member of the team who created the AAU survey, told FiveThirtyEight, “Information about the TGQN student population hasn’t been as well known, so that was our goal.” Of the 150,072 students surveyed, 1,398 were TGQN, which also reported the highest rate of victimization among those surveyed– 24.1 percent of the TGQN respondents reported unwanted sexual contact.

The fact that 27 schools agreed to participate in this survey is certainly encouraging, but that group makes up less than half of the AAU and only a small fraction of colleges and universities in the United States. While a few other schools have conducted their own campus climate surveys, the questions and methods are not standardized, which prevents comparison between schools.

This study marks significant progress, but also indicates that there is much work to be done. Coming amid a larger push to elevate the issue sexual assault on college campuses and get better data on victimization, the AAU study highlights the extent of the issue. Unlike other studies, however, schools are starting to understand how their efforts to stop sexual assault are working. While measuring the problem is an important step, colleges must now seek to implement and track the success of new prevention techniques.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

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