Do you wear seatbelts?

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  • atgcpaul
    Veteran Member
    • Aug 2003
    • 4055
    • Maryland
    • Grizzly 1023SLX

    Do you wear seatbelts?

    Assuming your car is equipped with seatbelts, do you wear them? I am subscribed to the local police blotter and there was a double fatal accident last night where the drivers of each car died. One was 41 and the other was 65. Neither was wearing their seatbelt. I was also riding with a coworker who's close to 50. I reminded him he forgot his belt (he was driving, I was shotgun) and he said, "Yeah, I never use them."

    I'm not quite 40 and growing up in the 80s and 90s, I remember being barraged with Wear Your Seatbelt commercials. I didn't use to wear belts in the rear--especially when they were lap belts, but only within the past 10-15 years have I started to use them religiously in the rear now that they are shoulder belts.
    85
    Yes, all the time regardless of where I'm sitting.
    91.76%
    78
    Yes, but only if I'm up front (driving or shotgun).
    8.24%
    7
    Yes, but only if I'm driving.
    0.00%
    0
    Yes, but only if I'm sitting in the rear.
    0.00%
    0
    No.
    0.00%
    0

    The poll is expired.

  • Pappy
    The Full Monte
    • Dec 2002
    • 10453
    • San Marcos, TX, USA.
    • BT3000 (x2)

    #2
    I wear them religiously and have since long before it was law. Texas requires ALL occupants to be belted in.

    In 1971 I was on my way home on leave before going to Iceland and witnessed an accident outside of Hooks, TX. A drunk crossed the median and clipped the left front of an oncoming car. He walked away with only a few scratches and, I suspect, some bruising from over tightened hand cuffs. Every door on the other car would open except the driver's. The driver was a mid 20's mother of 2 and slammed into the steering wheel/column and was dead before we could get to her. The Trooper commented that if she had been wearing a seat belt she would have gone home to her kids that night.

    When I left the scene I pulled up off the shoulder for about 30', pulled back over and took the rubber bands of my seat belt in the floor behind the seat. I have not driven, or allowed my passengers to ride, without them since.

    I was looking for an old report on the impact of unrestrained passengers and objects. Didn't find the one I remember reading but I found this in one article.

    Wearing seatbelts.
    •In a crash at 30mph,an unrestrained person is thrown forward with a force equal to 30 to 60 times their own body weight.
    •15 people in the front of cars are killed each year by rear seat passengers.


    An unrestrained 50# object/child in the backseat would impact the front seat with a force of between 1500 and 3000 pounds. Even at the low end, there is a real possibility of the front seat being torn from the floor board. That would require your seat belt to hold you, your seat, and the force of that secondary impact!
    Don, aka Pappy,

    Wise men talk because they have something to say,
    Fools because they have to say something.
    Plato

    Comment

    • durango dude
      Senior Member
      • Mar 2011
      • 934
      • a thousand or so feet above insanity
      • 50s vintage Craftsman Contractor Saw

      #3
      prefer to be wearing my helmet.....

      Comment

      • twistsol
        Veteran Member
        • Dec 2002
        • 2893
        • Cottage Grove, MN, USA.
        • Ridgid R4512, 2x ShopSmith Mark V 520, 1951 Shopsmith 10ER

        #4
        As bad a driver as I am, it's just common sense to wear a seat belt whenever I get in a car.
        Chr's
        __________
        An ethical man knows the right thing to do.
        A moral man does it.

        Comment

        • LCHIEN
          Internet Fact Checker
          • Dec 2002
          • 20914
          • Katy, TX, USA.
          • BT3000 vintage 1999

          #5
          Seat belts are an evolutionary filter.
          Those that wear them and survive will improve the intelligence of the race.
          Those who don't and perish shall by their demise also improve the human race.
          Its not always fair but the law of probability will work out in the end.
          Loring in Katy, TX USA
          If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat all problems as if they were nails.
          BT3 FAQ - https://www.sawdustzone.org/forum/di...sked-questions

          Comment

          • TB Roye
            Veteran Member
            • Jan 2004
            • 2969
            • Sacramento, CA, USA.
            • BT3100

            #6
            Always wear mine, learned my lesson driving a midget prior to roll cages we had lap belts didn't have shoulder belt because if you flipped you wanted get as low as possible we had a roll bar but you grabbed the steering wheel and pulled your self down to it and hung on. Later we were required to wear both even though we didn't have a cage just hoop behind out heads. Roll cages on open wheel cars weren't required until about 1968 and then we had to wear fire suits also. We talk now at the reunions on how lucky we were. Found we could do a better job of driving belted in and were not trying to hang on and steer at the same time. Once the roll cages and shoulder belt started being used the death toll dropped dramatically. Then a few years later Fuel Cells became mandatory and things got ever safer. That's why we still the have the King, AJ, Mario, the Unsers and others still with us. My neighbor and good friend, fellow driver and who I worked on his cars will turn 85 next week not in real good shape because of to many concussions but still going biggest problem most of us have no hearing and having to use hearing aids. Nothing like fuel injected chevy on Alky bellowing in you ears while you change the gears in the quick change while they are lining up for the next race. Hearing protection, did have any, raced in T-shirts and Jackets before fire suits. Thats my friend in the 100 car, that is what's left of sprint car on the ground that ran over my friend year 1972.
            Attached Files

            Comment

            • Carpenter96
              Established Member
              • Aug 2011
              • 178
              • Barrie ON Canada
              • BT 3000

              #7
              Our seat belt law came into effect (Ontario Canada) almost 37 years ago but even before That I wore my seat belt. I had a strange car for the time, it was 1968 dodge dart 4 door with a mighty slant six and it had 6 seat belts and shoulder straps in the front.

              Regards Bob

              Comment

              • Turaj
                Veteran Member
                • Dec 2002
                • 1019
                • Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
                • BT3000 (1998)

                #8
                Always, always, ALWAYS.

                I also force everyone in my car to wear theirs.
                Turaj (in Toronto)
                "When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading!" Henny Youngman

                Comment

                • capncarl
                  Veteran Member
                  • Jan 2007
                  • 3564
                  • Leesburg Georgia USA
                  • SawStop CTS

                  #9
                  Lorings quote answers it all for me! Thanks, I needed those words of wisdom this morning to start off my week. Every couple of months we hear a tragic story of someone needlessly killed in an accident while not wearing their seat belts. I always ask myself why were they not wearing their belts, is it that hard to put them on? don't they respect their families and friends enough to at least do this simple task? They were evolutionary filtering therselves out.
                  capncarl

                  Comment

                  • JimD
                    Veteran Member
                    • Feb 2003
                    • 4187
                    • Lexington, SC.

                    #10
                    There is a strong sense of "don't tell me what to do" in SC that works against seat belt usage. It helps keep unions out and thus northern businesses moving here. It also delayed passage of a real seat belt law. Until recently, police had to stop you for something else before they could write you up for seat belt usage. So our rate of usage is relatively low and there are stories about somebody dying in a wreck that wasn't wearing a seat belt almost every week. The estimate of risk reduction is that wearing a seat belt reduces your risk of dying in a wreck by about 50%.

                    Comment

                    • TB Roye
                      Veteran Member
                      • Jan 2004
                      • 2969
                      • Sacramento, CA, USA.
                      • BT3100

                      #11
                      Little safety tip

                      Carry a spring loaded center punch in your car along with something like a Buck Knife. The center punch is for breaking window allowing you to get out or to help some one else out of their vehicle. The knife is for cutting seat belts for the same reason as the punch. I learned this while working for the CHP. I carry one of each in my cars, in the center console or glove box or some place the is easy to get to. If you go into the water or catch fire these two things could save you life. Cars now a days have power window and the seats belts can had to release in a hurry.

                      Comment

                      • cwsmith
                        Veteran Member
                        • Dec 2005
                        • 2737
                        • NY Southern Tier, USA.
                        • BT3100-1

                        #12
                        Absolutely!!! And while I rarely have passengers other than family, I do check to make sure they too are buckled in.

                        I honestly can't remember if my old 56' Mercury Monteray had seat belts, but I think it did; and I do remember it had a padded dash, window columns, impact steering wheel (column was sunken and I remember the commercials where a football player would ram himself into the steering wheel). As I recall, 1956 was a big year for safety features on many U.S. cars.

                        My first new car was a 65' VW and it had seatbelts for sure... the off-use mounting clip was on the parking brake lever, between the front seats and if you didn't have the belt off that clip, (like wearing the belt), the metal belt clip would dig into your wrist when you reached down to release the brake.

                        Carpenter96,

                        I had a 68' Plymouth Valiant, also with the little "slant 6". Great little car, although mine was rather Spartenly appointed with it's vinyl bench seats and no carpeted floors. While I know a couple of versions of that year's dash board, mine hade rubber padding above and below the dash, with the bottom molding making for a nice "shelf" where I could lay my sunglasses. A friend of mine had a Dart, same color as mine, with carpeting, but no lower dash padding. I kept that car for eight years.. got great mileage and service from it.

                        CWS
                        Think it Through Before You Do!

                        Comment

                        • greenacres2
                          Senior Member
                          • Dec 2011
                          • 633
                          • La Porte, IN
                          • Ryobi BT3000

                          #13
                          Originally posted by TB Roye
                          Little safety tip

                          Carry a spring loaded center punch in your car along with something like a Buck Knife. The center punch is for breaking window allowing you to get out or to help some one else out of their vehicle. The knife is for cutting seat belts for the same reason as the punch. I learned this while working for the CHP. I carry one of each in my cars, in the center console or glove box or some place the is easy to get to. If you go into the water or catch fire these two things could save you life. Cars now a days have power window and the seats belts can had to release in a hurry.
                          I keep one of these http://resqme.com/US/ on my key ring. I've been at a lot of accident scenes where stuff is all over the place--but the keys are always in the ignition. I've helped a few volunteer fire departments in areas with deep ditches and high rates of water accidents get funding to provide them to citizens--and have heard some good stories as a result.

                          I also carry one of these in the door pouch http://www.thefirestore.com/store/pr...roductId/1088/, one in my fire coat, and one in my tool belt on race tracks.

                          No direct interest in the products or distributors, but those are both phenomenal tools.

                          P.S.--seat belts all the time, i've seen the results of not wearing.

                          earl

                          Comment

                          • atgcpaul
                            Veteran Member
                            • Aug 2003
                            • 4055
                            • Maryland
                            • Grizzly 1023SLX

                            #14
                            I would love to think I'd have the wherewithal to use one of those rescue tools in the event of a crash--especially if my car plunged under water. Hope I never have to find out.

                            Comment

                            • Condoman44
                              Established Member
                              • Nov 2013
                              • 178
                              • CT near Norwich
                              • Ryobi BT3000

                              #15
                              I have two points to make about this:

                              First, I recall the time I switched to always mode. It was about 1971 and I saw a billboard that said there was only one reason to not wear a seat belt, stupid.

                              Second, years later I met my spouse and she worked at Yale helping develop state level policy for law makers. The statistics are scary. Almost all the time one is ejected from the vehicle the results are deadly. Your chances of survival increase exponentially when seat belts are use. And as one would imagine air bags plus side curtain air bags will increase that even more.

                              Comment

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