A Rare Situation Wearing a Seatbelt MIGHT Have Killed YOU

[308Mike]

Linkarooni:

I didn't spend much time looking for the rear seat passenger, but it appears to me that if the driver was wearing a seat-belt, he'd been killed!

Overtaking ends in brutal crash - Lucky Escape! but the driver and the passenger in the backseat without scratches!

LUCKY is an UNDERSTATEMENT!!!!!

[Jericho941]

Eh, I doubt it. Seatbelts mostly keep you from moving up and forward, rather than from being pushed to the side.

The only time I've actually heard of a seat belt killing someone was when a teenager wanted to see what her parents' Ford Taurus could do, floored it down a hill, failed to make a turn and ran straight into a tree. The car was full of passengers and the one riding in the middle rear passenger seat with a simple lap belt (no shoulder restraint) was cut in half at the waist.

[Highspeed]

Lap belts are famous for snapping your spine and creating paraplegics. I'd rather take my chances going through the windscreen. Some things are worse than dying.

Any four wheeled vehicle I was intending to drive hard I would fit with a race seat and 4 point harness. I even had them shipped out here, just in case

[TheIrishman]

Lap belts are famous for snapping your spine and creating paraplegics...Any four wheeled vehicle I was intending to drive hard I would fit with a race seat and 4 point harness.

My '69 Nova only had lap belts, with a bench seat. Before it ever touched the road I fitted a set of Vette buckets and a 4 point. The cross bar(custom) behind the front seats made the rear seats useless, but then again it wasn't a grocery getter. And I like walking.

[Yogimus]

Cops and medics had a saying in germany: "I never had to unbuckle a corpse"

[Wrenchbender1]

Cops and medics had a saying in germany: "I never had to unbuckle a corpse"

Ugh. saw that twice when I was heading to base on A6 when I was at Ramstein. The first was so mangled I couldn't figure out what type of car it was. The paramedics were pulling two boxes out of the back of their truck rather than gurneys. The second one was some idiot who just HAD to try out his brand new Mustang and couldn't do it without packing it full of people. Fucking idiots and double fucking idiots for dragging your friends along for the ride.

[308Mike]

Cops and medics had a saying in germany: "I never had to unbuckle a corpse"

That's 'cause they cut the seat belts. Investigate several fatal accidents and I GUARANTEE you'll come across dead folks buckled in. During my years assigned to Traffic Division, I investigated a couple of T-bone accidents where a person was pushed to the other side of the car by the crumpling of the passenger space intrusion of the car body/doors. Had they been buckled in, they would have been killed. HOWEVER, this is VERY rare and CERTAINLY doesn't justify the non-wearing of a seat belt.

The seat belt's most value comes from not allowing the occupant to be ejected from the vehicle, usually through their now-open door (especially if the vehicle rolls or flips). It also keeps you from becoming PARTIALLY ejected if the vehicle rolls or flips. I'd say over 90% of people who are ejected die, and partial ejections are almost ALWAYS fatal. Those who are partially ejected and the vehicle doesn't roll and who survive are usually either paraplegics, quadriplegics, or severely brain damaged, or a combination thereof. They also usually have multiple broken ribs.

When I'm in a car, I ALWAYS wear my seat belt, I feel naked without it. I'll take my chances of getting injured by passenger space intrusion (in San Diego county, local protocol identifies 12 inches or more of passenger space intrusion is classified as a trauma incident/call). I DO NOT want to risk getting ejected (air bags also help hold you in your seat), and it's why I also lock my doors. Having the door locked makes it more difficult for the latch mechanism to be popped open by the impact of the crash.

[Netpackrat]

A number of years ago, a JAL 747 landed on a State of Alaska pickup truck that was on the runway (not sure if it was the pilot's fault, or the controller's fault, it was before my time working at the airport). It severed the left main body gear clean off, which is no mean feat. I have seen the pictures from this accident. The truck was totally destroyed; the passenger cab utterly crushed. I looked at those pictures, with the thought running through my head that there was no way that anybody could have lived through that. Except the driver (the only occupant) did survive. He was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected from the cab. As I understand it, he was severely crippled, but was still alive when the story was told to me, at least a decade or more after it happened. The airplane was repaired here and I later worked on it over the course of several years when it made stops in Anchorage. JA8937, IIRC.

[TheIrishman]

Cops and medics had a saying in germany: "I never had to unbuckle a corpse"

That's 'cause they cut the seat belts. Investigate several fatal accidents and I GUARANTEE you'll come across dead folks buckled in.

Drive a wrecker for a few months in a high traffic area, you'll see plenty of bloody messes bagged up out of cars with cut belts. It's gotten to the point of financial suicide around here to not wear your belt. It is now a valid reason for a stop(where it was originally a secondary ticket) and runs about $130. Yet there are still plenty of fatalities.

We've all heard stories of the drunk with no seatbelt going limp and falling into the foot holes of a car in a wreck and walking away near unhurt. Or the guy who got flung from his T-tops/convertible and landed on a nice soft patch of grass. But then we've also heard of people surviving failed parachute openings, doesn't mean you jump without one.

[Weetabix]

The seat belt's most value comes from not allowing the occupant to be ejected from the vehicle, usually through their now-open door (especially if the vehicle rolls or flips). It also keeps you from becoming PARTIALLY ejected if the vehicle rolls or flips.

In Fairbanks, I was doing a 3R design on the Steese Highway (Resurface, Repair, Rehabilitate). Part of that was accident analyses over the past 10 years to see if a geometric feature was causing accidents.

Anyway, all the fatalities, except two, were from ejections in rollover accidents. No fatalities on people belted in except those two. They were a head on in a curve where the downhill guy was speeding and doped up. They sent me the autopsy report on that one. I kind of wish they hadn't. Nothing was saving those two.

The upshot was, I always wear a seat belt as do my passengers. It's not a guarantee, but I try to bet with the odds.