With the summer months coming up and with them prime roadtrip time I want to make sure everyone's buckled up. What a great side effect of your forum admin becoming an EMT! (Well hopefully, national registry is in 5 days.)
I wear a lap belt, that's good enough right?
Umm no. Well unless of course you don't mind "seat belt syndrome"? Basically if you only wear a lap
belt your lower body is held in place quite well. Meanwhile, your upper body continues on it's merry inertia way,
this has a good chance of causing seperation of the lumbar vertebrae not to mention lots of fun upper body trauma.
Hint: Spinal column injuries may cause paralysis which you might not enjoy.
I am a hardcore badass who breaks the rulez!!! I don't care about my life!
Wow you are such a cool cat. Now do this little exercise for me, who do you love the most?
Now throw a baseball as hard as you can at their head, no backing out of this now Mr. Badass. Done? Ok
now you need to build a catapult to throw your body at them at say just 30mph. The end result should be
somewhat similar to this video (external link). Selfish/Ignorant pricks
are the ones who don't wear a seat belt thinking only they will suffer, now you can't claim ignorance.
Insert Risk Compensation Theory Argument here!
For those of you unfamiliar with risk compensation theory basically it states that as your perceived risk
decreases you utilize less caution. So if you are wearing your seat belt then you will drive more dangerously then
a driver not wearing a seat belt. This results in a smaller drop in crash fatalities then one would otherwise expect. But
what is not taken into account by many who use this as their argument is one simple thing: If everyone else is driving dangerously
wearing their seat belt and they get in an accident with you not wearing yours...lets just say the laws of physics don't care
about your safer driving habits. I found a nice breakdown of an accident at 55mph, this time in text format.
For any of your that love statistics, here are just a few from the tons out there on this subject:
- Of the 32,598 passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2002, 59 percent were not wearing a safety belt.
[NHTSA, Traffic Safety Facts 2002, October 2003]
- Seventy-three percent of the passenger vehicle occupants who were in a fatal crash in 2002 and were restrained survived;
of those who were not restrained, only 43 percent survived. [NHTSA, Traffic Safety Facts 2002, October 2003]
- In fatal crashes, 73 percent of all vehicle occupants who were totally ejected were killed. Only 1 percent of restrained
occupants were ejected. Safety belts are effective in preventing total ejections. [NHTSA, Traffic Safety Facts 2002 - Overview, July 2003]
- Overall, those not directly involved in crashes pay for nearly three-quarters of all crash costs, primarily through
insurance premiums, taxes and travel delay. In 2000 these costs, borne by society rather than by crash victims, totaled
over $170 billion. [NHTSA,Economic Impact of Crashes, May 2002]
Well enough of me ranting, feel free to argue or agree with this article via the link below.
Discuss this article.
- Aftiel; May 4, 2006;