Washington’s seat belt use remains near the top nationally, a recent survey shows.

The use rate for 2009 was 96.4 percent is a slight dip from the 2008 use rate of 96.5 percent.

Other past year’s use rates are:

2005 – 95.2%

2006 – 96.3%

2007 – 96.4%

In addition, there 31 percent drop in vehicle occupant deaths from 1986 to 2008 while vehicle miles traveled increased 34 percent over this same time period, the study showed.

In 1986, when Washington first adopted the seat belt law, seat belt use was at 36 percent and there were 528 vehicle occupant deaths, compared to 362 deaths in 2008.