ALBANY (AP) -- State officials are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the seat-belt law today with a party at the Capitol -- complete with crash-test dummies and fancy cakes.
New York became the first state in the nation to make seat belts mandatory, 25 years ago this summer. State Trooper David Parker, now retired, wrote the nation's first seat belt ticket. He'll be at the celebration today, along with a lot of other law-enforcement folks.
Officials say less than half of New York motorists used seat belts in the fall of 1985, but nearly 90 percent buckled up last year. There were about 1,300 traffic fatalities statewide in 2007, a 35 percent decline from 1986.
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