Do you wear your seat belt?

mudwrx

I wear my seat belt every time I get in an automobile. It's so natural now it's just automatic.
(It's also the law here, although not sure how much that factors in to peoples decisions)

The reason I ask is I just read yet another person killed when they got ejected from their car because they did not have a seat belt on.

I have a friend who simply refuses to wear one, has his own brain dead excuses not to, and every time I start to read one of these articles I wonder if I will see his name.

Such a simple act can save your life.

So, do you wear your seat belt? Every time?

steveinaz

Most of the time, sometimes on long drives it comes off for awhile.

vc69

Definitely

ben62670

A seat belt can also kill you. It really depends on the accident. I wear one because the government is really trying hard to generate money with seat belt laws. I can't afford a ticket. More cracking down should be done on cell phone users.
Ben

jflail2

I wear one always. Was ingrained in my head as a kid, so it's habitual now.

bobman1235

I live in the only state in the Union that doesn't require by law that you wear one.... but yes I wear one every time. Once in a while I'll break my "routine" getting into the car and drive off without having buckled, and I'll instantly feel like something is "off."

I can't find a negative, so why not? Even though it's also stupid, I can at least see why people would ride a motorcycle without a helmet - the reasons NOT to (discomfort or whatever) don't come anywhere near outweighing the life-saving, but at least there's SOME argument. There are no real arguments against seat belts.

Ace944gs

Agreed- I can't think of any reason NOT to wear a belt. Or, perhaps better said, a rationale reason. It's so easy to do, and I too feel something is off if I'm not buckled. Plus, that damn beeping noise my car makes is enough to drive a human insane in the 15 seconds it stays on.

As a kid, I used to carpool with a friend whose parents were EMTs, and who wouldn't move the car out of park unless all the kids were buckled. Of course, as kids, we used to roll our eyes, but every time we did we'd get another very detailed gruesome story about the latest no-seat-belt wearing accident victim that didn't even make it to the hospital. It usually shut us up....and it definitely was effective.

On the other hand, when I was in high school, a group of classmates cut class to head to the beach in daddy's Mustang convertible. They were driving 80 mph in a 45, lost control, went airborne, flipped over, and hit a tree hard enough to split the car in two. 2 died, one made it....the one who made it survived because he wasn't wearing a belt since he was crammed in the "back seat" of the mustang, and when the car flipped, he was ejected onto a soft pile of grass with hardly a scratch.....

Willow

It's always on. The only time it is not is if I stop off at the supermailbox to check for mail, then it's only about 7 houses down. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

codyc1ark

Always. I look at to many wrecks where people we're not wearing their seatbelt, and are either seriously injured or killed. One of my best friends sister from high school got in a wreck a few months ago, she wasnt wearing a belt, ejected her through the windshield, she is now in a home with 24/7 care, lost the baby she was carrying. Her son in the back seat survived without a scratch, in his carseat, belted in. Now its up to her husband to take care of the son without a mother, or at least a mother who can't walk, speak, or eat by herself, ever again. This was on a rural gravel road.

bobman1235

Of course it's possible a seat belt could cause you harm, but the odds are so far in favor of it saving you rather than harming you taht the point is not only moot but idiotic.

cubdog

Always.

cubdog

Knucklehead

sure do...Va State Police will pull you in a heartbeat.

Joe08867

Always, Saved my life once. I don't think hitting a Guardrail head on at 60 in a VW Golf would be fun without a seatbelt. Completely destroyed the front of the car, cracked the engine block and transmission. Hood ended up in the windshield. All I had was a bruised rib. I say they work.

Ben, I have read both sides of this issue myself but still feel better wearing over not.

mrbiron

Saved my life once......92 Bonneville --->45pmh--->Tree--->walked away without a scratch.
I even put it on before i start my car.

maximillian

Always too. Make passengers wear them too. In an accident they are a projectile and put your life in jeopardy.

cnh

mrbiron wrote: »

Saved my life once......92 Bonneville --->45pmh--->Tree--->walked away without a scratch.
I even put it on before i start my car.

Saved my life as well. I-78, drunk Driver, Toyota Corolla rear ended (mine) by a Lincoln Continental traveling at 90 mph. Flipped my car....slid down the Jersey highway hanging upside down for a quarter mile. Broke a face bone which knocked me out and woke up in the ambulance. 30 minutes after the accident I was walking around and driving the next day? I wouldn't be here today had I not been wearing that belt. There were NO airbags in Corollas when this occurred--a while back.

Next day, the guys at the junkyard that towed my car. Stared at me in awe--and couldn't believe that anyone had walked away from an accident that took them hours to clean up and had my gas tank sitting in the back seat of the car. Thank God, no one else was in the car, because the only spot one could have survived in was the driver's seat. The hood was down to waist level on the passenger side and the backseat was gone--the gas tank was sitting there?

Dodged a bullet there! BTW..the guy in the Lincoln had NO INSURANCE and never showed up for his court date. What a mess!

cnh

sucks2beme

Not always. My first couple of cars didn't have any.
Bad habit. I tend to forget when driving the truck.
The SUV won't LET you forget.

cristo

Always.

exalted512

Whatever I'm driving rarely leaves the driveway unless everyone is buckled up.

It's been about 5 years ago now a friend of mine fell asleep at the wheel and died because he wasn't wearing his seat belt. His dad, who I also knew fairly well, committed suicide a few months later...leaving his mom there alone to deal with it.

I find it funny that there's seat belt laws but most helmet laws for motorcycles are fairly lax. I can see both sides of whether it should be a law or not, but I would imagine if seat belt laws were NOT in place, insurance premiums would go up...so for that reason, I support them.

Here's an article about a kid who died due to not wearing his seat belt...about 4 months after he had wrote an article attacking seat belt laws.
http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_d61cc109-3492-54ef-849d-0a5d7f48027a.html
-Cody

Big Dawg

Always, without exception. And, if you want to ride in my car, you will wear one too.

My life has been saved by seat belts on at least 2 occasions. Ask an ER doc about what comes through the door.

F1nut

Always.

bobman1235

exalted512 wrote: »

I can see both sides of whether it should be a law or not, but I would imagine if seat belt laws were NOT in place, insurance premiums would go up...so for that reason, I support them.

On what planet? Seat belt laws are relatively new in most places, have insurance rates plummeted since then? Does NH have the most expensive liability insurance in the nation?

Demiurge

No, I don't. It is useless.

Slinger182

I wear mine but have always been against seat belt laws.

Has anybody ever died in a car accident while wearing a seat belt? Yes
Has anybody ever lived just because they weren't wearing a seat belt? Yes

Would it be safer to wear a fire proof suit, helmet, have a role cage and be harnessed in? Yes
Why isn't that a law????

Danny Tse

Always.

steveinaz

It's a smart thing to do, I don't know how many times I've heard cops say "I've yet to unbuckle a dead person." That speaks volumes.

NotaSuv

Always....................

thsmith

100% of the time. It is really a no brainer.

Jstas

Yes. It's the only thing that holds my skinny butt in the seat when taking turns on two wheels.

Demiurge

This was interesting, and its one of the reasons I'm against so many of these 'safety' laws that really just entice people to be more reckless. Look at the NFL for another recent example:

The Hidden Danger of Seat Belts

By DAVID BJERKLIE

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1564465,00.html#ixzz18Io9wTfF

If there's one thing we know about our risky world, it's that seat belts save lives, right? And they do, of course. But reality, as usual, is messier and more complicated than that. John Adams, risk expert and emeritus professor of geography at University College London, was an early skeptic of the seat belt safety mantra. Adams first began to look at the numbers more than 25 years ago. What he found was that contrary to conventional wisdom, mandating the use of seat belts in 18 countries resulted in either no change or actually a net increase in road accident deaths.

How can that be? Adams' interpretation of the data rests on the notion of risk compensation, the idea that individuals tend to adjust their behavior in response to what they perceive as changes in the level of risk. Imagine, explains Adams, a driver negotiating a curve in the road. Let's make him a young male. He is going to be influenced by his perceptions of both the risks and rewards of driving a car. The considerations could include getting to work or meeting a friend for dinner on time, impressing a companion with his driving skills, bolstering his image of himself as an accomplished driver. They could also include his concern for his own safety and desire to live to a ripe old age, his feelings of responsibility for a toddler with him in a car seat, the cost of banging up his shiny new car or losing his license. Nor will these possible concerns exist in a vacuum. He will be taking into account the weather and the condition of the road, the amount of traffic and the capabilities of the car he is driving. But crucially, says Adams, this driver will also be adjusting his behavior in response to what he perceives are changes in risks. If he is wearing a seat belt and his car has front and side air bags and anti-skid brakes to boot, he may in turn drive a bit more daringly.

The point, stresses Adams, is that drivers who feel safe may actually increase the risk that they pose to other drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians and their own passengers (while an average of 80% of drivers buckle up, only 68% of their rear-seat passengers do). And risk compensation is hardly confined to the act of driving a car. Think of a trapeze artist, suggests Adams, or a rock climber, motorcyclist or college kid on a hot date. Add some safety equipment to the equation — a net, rope, helmet or a condom respectively — and the person may try maneuvers that he or she would otherwise consider foolish. In the case of seat belts, instead of a simple, straightforward reduction in deaths, the end result is actually a more complicated redistribution of risk and fatalities. For the sake of argument, offers Adams, imagine how it might affect the behavior of drivers if a sharp stake were mounted in the middle of the steering wheel? Or if the bumper were packed with explosives. Perverse, yes, but it certainly provides a vivid example of how a perception of risk could modify behavior.

In everyday life, risk is a moving target, not a set number as statistics might suggest. In addition to external factors, each individual has his or her own internal comfort level with risk-taking. Some are daring while others are cautious by nature. And still others are fatalists who may believe that a higher power devises mortality schedules that fix a predetermined time when our number is up. Consequently, any single measurement assigned to the risk of driving a car is bound to be only the roughest sort of benchmark. Adams cites as an example the statistical fact that a young man is 100 times more likely to be involved in a severe crash than is a middle-aged woman. Similarly, someone driving at 3:00 a.m. Sunday is more than 100 times more likely to die than someone driving at 10:00 a.m. Sunday. Someone with a personality disorder is 10 times more likely to die. And let's say he's also drunk. Tally up all these factors and consider them independently, says Adams, and you could arrive at a statistical prediction that a disturbed, drunken young man driving in the middle of the night is 2.7 million times more likely to be involved in a serious accident than would a sober, middle-aged woman driving to church seven hours later.

The bottom line is that risk doesn't exist in a vacuum and that there are a host of factors that come into play, including the rewards of risk, whether they are financial, physical or emotional. It is this very human context in which risk exists that is key, says Adams, who titled one of his recent blogs: "What kills you matters — not numbers." Our reactions to risk very much depend on the degree to which it is voluntary (scuba diving), unavoidable (public transit) or imposed (air quality), the degree to which we feel we are in control (driving) or at the mercy of others (plane travel), and the degree to which the source of possible danger is benign (doctor's orders), indifferent (nature) or malign (murder and terrorism). We make dozens of risk calculations daily, but you can book odds that most of them are so automatic—or visceral—that we barely notice them.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1564465,00.html#ixzz18In0VpC6

There's nothing wrong with wearing a seat belt, but I don't pretend a seat belt really makes me any safer. I'd rather be dead than sucking off a feeding tube for 40 years. Its a calculated risk and I'll assume the consequences of my choices.

kawizx9r

Always, I don't even begin to drive if all my passengers aren't buckled in.