The not wearing a seat belt myth saved my life.
12/3/07, 11:03 PM
#1
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The not wearing a seat belt myth saved my life.
I wonder why this myth endures? Recently a friend of mine had the misfortune of having his step sister involved in an accident where she was unconcious at the wheel of her car, it crossed lanes and hit another car head on and she was ejected from the car, and depsite some pretty bad injuries looks like she is gonna be okay.
When we were discussing the accident, he mentioned if she had been wearing a seatbelt, she would have surely been killed. I asked to see some of the pictures of the car and the passenger cell was intact along with the windshield, only the front of the car had been destroyed, mostly due to I assume the energy absorbing engineering designed into the front structure.
I proceeded to tell him that that was a BS statement, if she had been in fact wearing her seatbelt, here injuries would have been far less severe. I then told him, she should make it a priority to go to church whenever possible and give thanks to the almighty that she's even still here.
But that got me to thinking, about how many times do you hear somebody say, if they had been wearing a seat belt they would have been dead. The only time I could have thought that might have been the case was when my uncle wrecked an old dodge of his (well it was really new back in say 67 or 68 or so), the engine ended up in the passenger compartment, and he was thrown from the car and was one of the very lucky few to have survived. However, given the advances since then and the way vehicles are engineered now, this seems like a silly thing to cling too? Also while discussing this with a few coworkers it seemed as though women are more prone to not use a safteybelt compared to men?
When we were discussing the accident, he mentioned if she had been wearing a seatbelt, she would have surely been killed. I asked to see some of the pictures of the car and the passenger cell was intact along with the windshield, only the front of the car had been destroyed, mostly due to I assume the energy absorbing engineering designed into the front structure.
I proceeded to tell him that that was a BS statement, if she had been in fact wearing her seatbelt, here injuries would have been far less severe. I then told him, she should make it a priority to go to church whenever possible and give thanks to the almighty that she's even still here.
But that got me to thinking, about how many times do you hear somebody say, if they had been wearing a seat belt they would have been dead. The only time I could have thought that might have been the case was when my uncle wrecked an old dodge of his (well it was really new back in say 67 or 68 or so), the engine ended up in the passenger compartment, and he was thrown from the car and was one of the very lucky few to have survived. However, given the advances since then and the way vehicles are engineered now, this seems like a silly thing to cling too? Also while discussing this with a few coworkers it seemed as though women are more prone to not use a safteybelt compared to men?
12/4/07, 05:42 AM
#2
I say the seat belt probably saves more lives than it takes....thats why they are in vehicles....I would think you have better odds of living through any kind of accident wearing it than not....and If I do happen to get killed while I'm wearing it....chances are I wasnt going to make it either way....I'd think that less than 5% of accidents fall into this myth...I'll keep wearing it thank you.
12/4/07, 05:55 AM
#3
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There have been a few situations were accidents have been so severe that people died in their seatbelts, but I tend to believe that seatbelts save more lives than they take.
12/4/07, 09:30 AM
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There are, of course, very rare instances where not wearing a seatbelt was advantageous. But in the vast majority of cases, wearing seatbelts will drastically increase your odds of avoiding injury and death.
Even crashing into a river will be more dangerous when the unbelted dolt whacks his/her already dulled brainpan, knocking out whatever dim flicker of intelligence might exist in the first place in perfect prelude for a nice, peaceful drowning.
Getting shot in the head also might possibly save your life by blasting out an undiagnosed brain tumor in some Nth degree of possibility, but I wouldn't recommend getting shot in the head either.
Why some people seem driven to search for a statistically minute circumstance to try to justify this idea more informed by bravado than good sense is beyond me -- must be some posing machismo looking for a rationalization or something. Oh well, such self-destructive thinking will go the way of non-opposable thumbs when evolution eventually culls whatever genes gives rise to it.
Even crashing into a river will be more dangerous when the unbelted dolt whacks his/her already dulled brainpan, knocking out whatever dim flicker of intelligence might exist in the first place in perfect prelude for a nice, peaceful drowning.
Getting shot in the head also might possibly save your life by blasting out an undiagnosed brain tumor in some Nth degree of possibility, but I wouldn't recommend getting shot in the head either.
Why some people seem driven to search for a statistically minute circumstance to try to justify this idea more informed by bravado than good sense is beyond me -- must be some posing machismo looking for a rationalization or something. Oh well, such self-destructive thinking will go the way of non-opposable thumbs when evolution eventually culls whatever genes gives rise to it.
12/4/07, 12:05 PM
#7
NTTAWWT
I never ever ever dont wear my seatbelt. How would driving into a river be different, you just have to take the seatbelt off, after you open the door as quick as possible.
12/4/07, 12:31 PM
#8
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In my area, there have been a couple of news reports in the last month where they have reported the driver and/or passengers were thrown from the vehicle and killed because they were not wearing seatbelts. Every time I hear that I am still amazed that people still drive without them. I can barely remember a time when we did not wear them. I make sure mine is on first before I even start the car.
12/4/07, 12:54 PM
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Wear no belts, get all dead.
12/4/07, 01:14 PM
#10
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12/4/07, 02:17 PM
#11
I have heard Police officers all my life say they have never unbuckled a dead person at an accident scene. I have been a State Trooper for 20 years and have worked at least 200 Fatality wrecks and I have unbuckled 1 dead person out of those 200+ wrecks! The person in question was a 90 year old female that crossed traffic on a US highway and 2 cars T-boned her in the drivers door at 50 mph. Needless to say she would have been just as dead if she wasn' t wearing her seat belt.
Seat Belts Save Lives....I have witnessed this fact hundreds of times in 20 years of service.
Seat Belts Save Lives....I have witnessed this fact hundreds of times in 20 years of service.
12/5/07, 08:23 PM
#14
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I have heard Police officers all my life say they have never unbuckled a dead person at an accident scene. I have been a State Trooper for 20 years and have worked at least 200 Fatality wrecks and I have unbuckled 1 dead person out of those 200+ wrecks! The person in question was a 90 year old female that crossed traffic on a US highway and 2 cars T-boned her in the drivers door at 50 mph. Needless to say she would have been just as dead if she wasn' t wearing her seat belt.
Seat Belts Save Lives....I have witnessed this fact hundreds of times in 20 years of service.
Seat Belts Save Lives....I have witnessed this fact hundreds of times in 20 years of service.
12/6/07, 02:49 AM
#15
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I never wore a seat belt till December 7th 1990.
At the time I was driving an 88 Grand AM SE with Quad 4. Very quick car for it's era.
I had never worn a seat belt but just decided I would that night and made my friend in the passenger seat do the same. I wasn't planning anything stupid, I just kind of got a funny "spidey sense" that said I should.
I wish I would have had such insight into what was going to happen that night...
This is also the reason I've sworn off Front Wheel drive cars by the way....
I was driving down a fairly busy street and had just begun to change lanes when the car suddenly jerked to the left and did about 3 360's in the middle of 4 lanes of traffic. The steering wheel was completely useless. Luckily most drivers behind and in front of me in the opposing lanes saw what was happening and stopped without hitting me....
...At least everyone except for the 70 something year old couple in the full sized Ford Truck who actually passed the other cars that had already stopped and managed to nail my Grand AM in the rear. My car was hit so hard that my back window exploded into the passenger compartment and pieces of it are still embedded in my friend's neck to this day. What was my trunk was now directly behind my seat and the floorpan was twisted so that my seat was now sitting about 6 inches higher than the passenger seat.
The force of the impact was such that the shoulder portion of the seatbelt mechanism actually failed and threw me into my steering wheel bending it back onto itself. My friend had a bruise on his shoulder from his shoulder belt.
The comment from the Paramedic who came up to the car was, " I expected two dead bodies.." Aside from a bruised ribcage and a few trips to the chiropractor to correct what he called "Acquired acute Scoliosis" caused by the accident trauma, I was ok. My friend was in much the same shape. I still have problems with my neck but I look at it as a reminder. In short the seat belts saved our lives and I've worn one in every vehicle as driver or passenger ever since.
Nobody can tell me different and these days the likelihood of being in such an accident is even greater than it was back then. At least in my neck of the woods.
So wear it guys. Nobody in the NHRA, IHRA, IHBA or NASA for that matter would think of doing otherwise.
BTW the cause of the accident was a failure in the CV joint at the output shaft of the transmission that locked up the driver's side front wheel. The car only had 12K miles on it at the time of the accident. I researched safety issues and TSB's on the car and found one concerning the failure of the seat belt that I mentioned as well as potential problems with the McPherson strut mounts failing for that year. Unfortunately I couldn't find a lawyer willing to take a contingency case against GM at the time even though they thought it was a good case. Wanted the cash up front, got my revenge though as I make my money off law firms now.
At the time I was driving an 88 Grand AM SE with Quad 4. Very quick car for it's era.
I had never worn a seat belt but just decided I would that night and made my friend in the passenger seat do the same. I wasn't planning anything stupid, I just kind of got a funny "spidey sense" that said I should.
I wish I would have had such insight into what was going to happen that night...
This is also the reason I've sworn off Front Wheel drive cars by the way....
I was driving down a fairly busy street and had just begun to change lanes when the car suddenly jerked to the left and did about 3 360's in the middle of 4 lanes of traffic. The steering wheel was completely useless. Luckily most drivers behind and in front of me in the opposing lanes saw what was happening and stopped without hitting me....
...At least everyone except for the 70 something year old couple in the full sized Ford Truck who actually passed the other cars that had already stopped and managed to nail my Grand AM in the rear. My car was hit so hard that my back window exploded into the passenger compartment and pieces of it are still embedded in my friend's neck to this day. What was my trunk was now directly behind my seat and the floorpan was twisted so that my seat was now sitting about 6 inches higher than the passenger seat.
The force of the impact was such that the shoulder portion of the seatbelt mechanism actually failed and threw me into my steering wheel bending it back onto itself. My friend had a bruise on his shoulder from his shoulder belt.
The comment from the Paramedic who came up to the car was, " I expected two dead bodies.." Aside from a bruised ribcage and a few trips to the chiropractor to correct what he called "Acquired acute Scoliosis" caused by the accident trauma, I was ok. My friend was in much the same shape. I still have problems with my neck but I look at it as a reminder. In short the seat belts saved our lives and I've worn one in every vehicle as driver or passenger ever since.
Nobody can tell me different and these days the likelihood of being in such an accident is even greater than it was back then. At least in my neck of the woods.
So wear it guys. Nobody in the NHRA, IHRA, IHBA or NASA for that matter would think of doing otherwise.
BTW the cause of the accident was a failure in the CV joint at the output shaft of the transmission that locked up the driver's side front wheel. The car only had 12K miles on it at the time of the accident. I researched safety issues and TSB's on the car and found one concerning the failure of the seat belt that I mentioned as well as potential problems with the McPherson strut mounts failing for that year. Unfortunately I couldn't find a lawyer willing to take a contingency case against GM at the time even though they thought it was a good case. Wanted the cash up front, got my revenge though as I make my money off law firms now.
12/6/07, 06:34 AM
#16
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Working the Fayett Co ERT for several years, I can say I have never seen a wreck where a seatbelt would have killed or caused more injury than not wearing one.
BTW if you drive in the river you will have to let the car fill up before being able to open the door anyway. You'd have plenty of time to undo the belt that takes all of 5 seconds.
BTW if you drive in the river you will have to let the car fill up before being able to open the door anyway. You'd have plenty of time to undo the belt that takes all of 5 seconds.
12/6/07, 12:24 PM
#17
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Many women are shorter too, and frequently the belt ends up sitting directly on the side of our necks.
In my experience the 05+ mustangs are the absolute worst regarding both of the above. Designed by men no doubt
12/6/07, 07:50 PM
#18
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They make those fuzzy seat belt buddies and I've seen some other products that are supposed to help out with that. I'll be honest it is more of a pain to use than my other cars were but that doesn't keep me from doing it.
I remember this Public service commercial awhile back about seat belt use. They showed this woman who didn't wear her seatbelt because it wrinkled her dress then they switched to the same woman strapped to a stretcher and the nurse was saying, "Oh, you wrinkled your dress.."
There's a solution to every problem and somebody out there is probably making money on it! So seek them out, support the economy and be safer in your 'stang!
I remember this Public service commercial awhile back about seat belt use. They showed this woman who didn't wear her seatbelt because it wrinkled her dress then they switched to the same woman strapped to a stretcher and the nurse was saying, "Oh, you wrinkled your dress.."
There's a solution to every problem and somebody out there is probably making money on it! So seek them out, support the economy and be safer in your 'stang!
12/6/07, 08:20 PM
#19
R&D proves that wearing it can save your life. thats good enough for me.
i wear it every time i get into the car. its more habit than anything else.
just like how i wear a helmet when i ride my suzuki, everytime.
i wear it every time i get into the car. its more habit than anything else.
just like how i wear a helmet when i ride my suzuki, everytime.
