I voted most of the time, I am not going to wear mine to run down the hill to the store etc but I drive truck, and alot of times when you go through a scale they are more concerned if you have your seat belt on than anything else it just gets them to leave me alone, plus since most vehicles have air bags now, and without the seat belt the air bag WILL kill you faster than the accident I wear it. My opinion on the law is there shouldn't be any law on personal choice, the laws are supposed to protect the society not the individual, and it's ok to ship our kids to school on a bus without seat belts but I better wear one in my truck I have a very serious problem with that.
and I have seen the statistics and they are bogus seat belts do not save lives statistically my dad was a statastition, and he showed me how they twist them, and one of the major things they do is in an accident they ask all parties if they were wearing there seatbelt, almost everyone will say yes (they don't want to get a ticket) I had this happen once and yes I lied, the officer wrote it down as a seat belt saving another life the whole accident didn't cause $100 damage combined to both vehicles but it goes down as how seat belts save lives, and last year seatbelt usage went up and so did fatalities somehow that doesn't add up.
And lastly is enforcement it is revenue collecting pure, and simple, this year they had a seat belt check in Davenport IA on I 80, and I280 they had 4 officers with binoculars on an overpass, and 36 local, and county officers for chase cars (that I counted on I80 this doesn't count the ones on 280) which has to account for the entire force on the interstate, the same day 3 banks were robbed, and the robbers got away, but I guess they caught the real criminals.

 

Looks too me like another conspiracy theorists..

 

Did someone say there is a conspiracy here on seat belts. I am a nut on conspiracies, I have a conspiracy theory for just about everything.

 

I don't feel right sitting in a car without having my seat belt on. They can save your life and it is the law.

 

I wear mine all the time. Have a couple of cops and medics in the family and they all say the same thing," I've NEVER had to cut a seatbelt off a dead man". Nuff said!

 

Sad part is, I had a friend a while back (haven't seen him in years), who was in an accident where he would have been killed if he had been wearing his seat belt. It's one of those rarities, but he had no doubt. He fell asleep at the wheel, went off the road into a tree. Sometime before he impacted, he fell over onto the bench seat of his truck, and it was a good thing--the steering wheel was pressed into the back of the seat. He was in pretty rough shape for quite a while (several months in hospital, almost a year to recover), but they didn't bury him with a steering wheel in his chest. Now he walks with a bad limp and doesn't wear a seat belt.

On the flip side, one of my wife's cousins was killed on Mother's day this year when he fell asleep at the wheel, and probably wasn't wearing his seat belt (in a Ford truck).

Jason

 

Sorry about your loss. I am a firm believer in seatbelts regardless of the law. I have never had a car accident (knock on wood) but I have had to lay my bike down and I'm glad it didn't have a seatbelt or I wouldn't be here today. Got some nasty road rash a dislocated shoulder and an ankle screwed up for life but I'm here to talk about it.

 

Your friend probably wouldn't have gone off the road though if he had been awake.
Sorry to hear about your wife's cousin. The girl who lived next door to my house, also a class mate, when grwing up died in a car wreck between our junior and senior years of high school. Tragic event too. The worst part is we had hated each other and had sort of made amends but not said it. The reason why we didn't get along I don't even remember, funny how that works but we actually probably would have hit it off later in life. We had several differences but alot of common interests. I drive by that house everyday now and remember that and I always think too heal wounds while you still can. That was 7 years ago this past June and I still think it everyday i drive by that house.

 

I wear one always for three reasons:

1. I nearly fell out of my mother's car when I was 10 as we made a left turn and the passenger door wasn't completely shut.

2. Like wlihntr, I passed an accident on the highway... didn't look too bad... a Caddy convertible spun out for some reason and was sitting against the guard rail... no big deal... no major damage... however, the top was down... and laying in the middle of the road was a white sheet... with a pair of boots sticking out...

3. In a garage lot near my house was an old 280Z with a small dent in the front bumper... and two perfectly placed impact stars in the windshield...

 

I started wearing my seat belt thirteen years ago when I had my first daughter. I use it always. My kids are also consistent seat belt users, and when ever they are in a vehicle with someone that doesn't have one on, they point it out to the person.
My sister was also in a really bad car accident. She was hit head on in her van by a drunk driver. The paramedics said that if she WAS wearing her seat belt, she would have been dead. The impact made her slide out of her seat. She still got two broken legs, busted spleen and liver, and a couple of broken ribs. But if she had been wearing her seat belt, the steering wheel would have crushed her chest.

 

We can all find exceptions to seat belt use if we look far enough. Anecdotally, out of the traumas we see come thought the ER, those not wearing seat belts usually get the worst of it. Ejection from a vehicle rarely results in a good outcome.

That's not a scientific poll, it's not a hard fast rule, it's just from personal observation and experience.

 

Better than picking glass out of your head for the next 30 yrs, if you live. Now as being told to belt-up....I think the GOV has other things it could be doing.

 

Back in the late 80's, a good friend of mine was involved in an accident on the interstate. He was driving an El Camino and his left rear bumper was clipped by a guy making quick lane changes.
The nudge in the left rear turned him right and he smacked head-on into the cement retaining wall.
He was (and still is - thank goodness!) a good sized man. Porbably 6' 3" and maybe 200 lbs. He slammed hard into the driver's side door and apparently that, along with the impact causing enough frame damage, caused the driver's side door to fly open. The door went past its stops and smacked tha side of the car near the front wheel.
My friend made it part-way out of the car before his seat belt stopped him and kept him inside. He banged the right side of his head on the drip rail over the driver's door as he was jerked back into the driver's seat.
We always figured that was much better than rolling down the side of the interstate.
I watched a guy roll a Chevy S-10 Blazer on the interstate. He lost control in a drving rain storm, hit the center concrete retaining wall and flipped. The Blazer rolled 1 1/2 times and was left upside down in the middle of the interstate. Within a few seconds, he climbed out of the driver's window. I didn't ever know for sure but I figure he was wearing his seat belt.

Here is a short clip of what can happen:
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/index.php?e=noseatbelt.wmv
It is not extremely graphic, but is somewhat "disturbing".
View at your own discretion.

 

Good link, Brian, a great example.

I personally strongly believe in seatbelts, and I wear one every time I get in a vehicle, whether I'm driving across the country or across the parking lot, I can't get in a car without one. It's a habit that bugs the hell out of me if I don't buckle up. More importantly, I believe if I hadn't worn my seatbelts one night in January of 2003, I wouldn't be here right now.

Here's why I belive the government should enforce them: I, like every other driver on the road, make mistakes. Say I'm the one making the mistake, and I happen to cause an accident. I wear my seatbelt, so I'm fine, but the other person doesn't, and because of that, they are killed. Instead of paying a traffic ticket and moving on, I'd be put in jail for mansloughter because the other person wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Put in another way, would I want someone else to go to jail for killing me, when it was my decision not to wear the seatbelt, causing my own death?

To be honest, I'm not afraid of a car accident, although I guess i should be. I know as long as I wear my seatbelt, I have a great chance of getting out without injury. I am, however, scared to death of going down on my motorcycle.......but I always wear a helmet, just in case.

 

Shazaam! I don't know if anyone noticed, it, but the unfastened seatbelt can be seen suspended in the air at the end of the still frame, almost mocking him.