To all those non-seat belt wearers

[hrh_disney_queen]

Originally posted by DisneyVillain
If you are thrown from the car, it was already WAY out of control. There is no chance to recover a vehicle that is out of control enough to eject the driver.

While it seems logical that an unbelted driver would be more likely to lose control, I have never seen any evidence to that effect. It may be that by the time a seatbelt can make a difference, the car is already unrecoverable. I am sure that if a study comes out that shows that seatbelts improve the chance of maintaining control, it will get a lot of press coverage. Until such evidence is presented, the control argument is specious.

My personal belief is that government should protect us from each other, but not from ourselves.

And nobody rides in my car without a seatbelt.

I DO see seatbelt laws as a way of "government protecting us from each other".

What if the accident isn't enough to eject the driver, but tosses him/her across the seat? I still believe that having a driver in a moving car is better than NOT having a driver. I don't think that all accidents causing an unbelted driver to change positions in the car (or out of the car, for that matter) are unrecoverable, and I dont' see how anyone could assume that they are.

I know that some people are against government intervention at all costs, but when it is more that just the one person's life at stake, it is necessary to have laws.

 

[year2late]

I am taking care of a young man with 2 young children who was ejected from his car (luckily he was alone in the car) in what should have been a walk (or limp)away accident.

I feel sympathy for him to the utmost degree, but his refusal to wear a seatbelt will alter not just his life, but his family's.

He will probably live a relatively long life - quadraplegic and on a ventilator. He had poor health insurance and with limited income and family resources he will likely needed to be institutionalized for a very very long time - if not forever.

Guess where I stand on seatbelts?

 

[DisneyVillain]

I don't think that all accidents causing an unbelted driver to change positions in the car (or out of the car, for that matter) are unrecoverable

There is volumes of statistical evidence showing that you are less likely to be killed or injured if you are wearing a seatbelt, but NONE that you are less likely to lose control of your vehicle.

It seems logical, but it isn't supported by the facts.

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

Originally posted by DisneyVillain
There is volumes of statistical evidence showing that you are less likely to be killed or injured if you are wearing a seatbelt, but NONE that you are less likely to lose control of your vehicle.

It seems logical, but it isn't supported by the facts.

That's just the point, I'm really not worried about the condition of the driver that chooses not to buckle up. That's his/her choice-legal or not. I'm LOGICALLY looking at what could happen to some other innocent person if he chooses to not buckle up. And logic says that if you don't have a driver in a car, you don't have any POSSIBILITY of control. If there's a driver, there's a chance.

Are you saying that there have actually been studies done that PROVE that it DOESN'T matter?

 

[honeywolf7]

I wear mine, but honestly I have been known to undo the shoulder belt (the automatic part of an automatic belt) because it rubs the wrong way on my neck.

 

[DisneyVillain]

Are you saying that there have actually been studies done that PROVE that it DOESN'T matter?

No. I'm saying that unsupported conjecture about what might be, is a poor basis for a law.

 

[mickeyfan1]

I have a sister who would always wear her shoulder belt under her arm, didn't like that it rubbed her neck, one day she wayn'y paying attention and slammed into a concrete bridge abutment. The car hit dead into the corner of the pillar. Had she been wearing her shoulder belt correctly, she would have not hit the rear view mirror and saved herself from having a scar on her forehead. Granted, this was may years ago before air bags were invented, but seatbelts are designed to work correctly when used correctly. She had never failed to use her belt the way it was meant to be used since then. I also cringe when I see little kids standing up in the back seat of cars. I was hit from behind once, the car that hit me.....the driver was drinking and his child was standing on the back seat, upon impact the kid went face first into the back of the front seat and really smashed her mouth.

As far as people not wanting to use their seatbelts and not liking that it is the law in most states, you may never have an accident, but if you do, who is going to tell your loved ones that you may have lived, or sustained fewer injuries if only you had been wearing a seat belt? I agree that very rarely a seat belt may case more harm than good, but that is the exception to the rule.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Body ejections, most often through previously closed windows/doors (and usually not ejected if properly belted) frequently have deadly, final outcomes, and if not dead, at least cause a messed up body for years to come. And from stories from my son the firefighter/paramedic, are pretty nasty looking on the pavement, trees, bushes, etc.

 

[pumba]

of the death of my dear nephew.....he died because he didn't have his belt on......not for broken bones or internal injuries....he was thrown from the car and the car landed on him and he drown in about six inches of water that was in the ditch......
I think of him at this time of the year and yes I buckle up

 

[Nebsky]

I dont wear my seatbelt when parking
It only gets in the way


Do wear it when driving or riding though....

 

[mickeyfan1]

Ohhhh Nebsky parking + seatbelts = safe you know what!

 

[Nebsky]

Wish I would have remember that...

My sons name is Dakota....that was the type of car we were in.......

Just kidding....