AUGUSTA – A police officer sitting in his cruiser in a store parking lot sees a man get into his vehicle, start it up and drive off, clearly not buckling his safety belt.

Though the driver is obligated by state law to wear a seat belt, the officer is powerless to pursue, stop and ticket him for the offense because of the way the law is written.

Even so, Maine drivers might be getting the message that the officer is much more likely to be calling for an ambulance if that man crashes his vehicle.

More Mainers are using their seat belts, according to the Maine Department of Public Safety.

A survey conducted this summer showed that 72.3 percent of drivers and passengers are buckling up. The results showed the first significant increase in use since 1997, according to officials.

The rate compares with a 2002 national survey that showed a rate of 59.2 percent, the third-lowest in the country.

The national average is 79 percent.

Twenty states have laws allowing police officers to stop a driver when no seat belt use is seen. Not surprisingly, nine of those states are in the top 10 for seat belt use.

Gathered for a traffic “summit” Thursday in Augusta, safety officials seized upon improved seat belt use as an obvious front on which to attack the 1,510 deaths on Maine roads over the last 10 years.

Other crash factors examined Thursday:

. The relationship between age and crashes – the disproportionately high number by drivers 16 to 24 and drivers over 80.

. Lane departure crashes: in other words, driving off the road or into an oncoming lane.

. Aggressive driving and speed.

. Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

In 2002, there were about 37,000 reported crashes on Maine’s public roads – about 100 each day. In addition to the 216 deaths and about 16,000 injuries, the economic impact was estimated at $1.2 billion, according to a report by the Maine Transportation Safety Coalition.

The coalition also reported that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of injury deaths in Maine, and the ninth-leading cause of all deaths.

Dr. Dora Mills, director of the state Bureau of Public Health, said there were compelling human and financial costs to Maine’s low degree of seat belt use.

“We know that there are, on average, 1,100 hospitalizations due to highway accidents in Maine each year,” she said, and an average of 12,300 emergency room visits.

On average, 850 of those admitted to hospitals – 77 percent – were not wearing seat belts, Mills said. And most ER visits are made by those not wearing seat belts, she said.

“The lack of seat belts increases the risk of traumatic brain injury by 111 percent,” she said.

There is hope for improvement.

Public Safety Commissioner Michael Cantara said the state landed a $500,000 federal grant to address seat belt use.

Nearly $200,000 was spent on a radio ad campaign that ran during May and early June. Another $150,000 went toward police overtime hours and the purchase of radar detectors.

For a three-week period, police talked to drivers during traffic stops about seat belt use.

“There were a number of tickets written,” Cantara said, but for the most part, drivers were given a card explaining the advantages of using seat belts.

Part of the grant paid for a survey that found that seat-belt use was up from 59 percent in 2002 to 72 percent, the result of the initiative. “We were very satisfied with that effort,” Cantara said.

If the state were inclined to target its ad campaigns, it could focus on a particular demographic.

Mills said half of the drivers in Maine not using seat belts are between the age of 20 and 40, and two-thirds of those are men.

“They’re mostly young, adult men,” she said, who when they die in crashes “leave behind spouses, children and co-workers.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that if Maine were to adopt a law that allows police officers to visually enforce the seat belt law, compliance would increase by 11 percent, Mills said.

The Maine Bureau of Highway Safety coordinated the survey. Survey takers, from the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine, observed more than 18,000 vehicles between June 21 and July 3, according to Bureau Director Richard E. Perkins.

It was the sixth time Maine motorists have been surveyed for seat belt usage since 1991.

Previous results were:

. 1991, 33 percent

. 1995, 47 percent

. 1997, 61 percent

. 1998, 59 percent

. 2002, 59.2 percent