BOZEMAN — On Christmas Eve, A 17-year-old girl from Manhattan died after rolling her vehicle on Cameron Bridge Road. Official documents say icy road conditions and a lack of seat belts may have played a part.

A fatality crash report from the Montana Highway Patrol (MHP) states the 17-year-old was headed eastbound on Cameron Bridge Road when she lost control of her Nissan Xterra while exiting a curve.

The vehicle then went off the left side of the road where it overturned multiple times before coming to rest in a drainage ditch.

The girl was pronounced dead upon the arrival of first responders. The report says she was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident.

According to the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT), there have been 185 fatalities on Montana highways in 2024—seven more than this same time in 2023.

MDT reports that half of all Montanans killed in a motor vehicle collision from 2011 to 2020 were not wearing seat belts.

According to information provided by MHP, seat belt use was steadily increasing from 2019 to 2022 but dropped again in 2023.

MDT reports that Montana's rate of seat belt usage in 2020 was 20% less than the nationwide average.

I asked MHP’s Sergeant John Metcalfe why seatbelts are worn less in Montana. He tells me that one possibility is because Montana is one of 15 states in the country where seat belt violations are a secondary offense—meaning someone cannot be stopped or cited just for not wearing one.

Still, there were 430 seat belt violations recorded by MDT in 2023.

Information from the Montana Department of Transportation suggests adopting a primary seat belt law could reduce motor vehicle deaths by seven to eight percent.