Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic If you don't wear your seatbelt ...

Watch this and it will make a believer out of you.

This was linked to on another forum I visit. Nothing too graphic (no bloodshed) but totally scary nonetheless. He's a big guy; can you imagine if this had been a child??

http://www.949zeta.com/noSeatBelt/noSeatbelt.html

Kathy

Definitely scary, Kathy!

It does amaze me, though, that the seatbelt debate is still an issue anywhere. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but seatbelts have been uncontroversial in the UK and Ireland for almost 30 years; I remember the massive 'Clunk! Click!' campaigns growing up. Then when it also became compulsory for back-seat passengers to wear seatbelts - some time in the eighties, I think - hardly anyone batted an eyelid. We've had some scary ads, too, about the damage an unrestrained child in the back seat can do to the head and brain of an adult in the front seat even at impact speed of 30 miles per hour. It's not pretty.


Wendy

I spend too many evenings listening to tales from my firefighter husband on the carnage he has to mop up on shift to not be a believer long since, I'm afraid.

So many families left grieving when lives could have been saved so easily. It's truly heartbreaking.

If I had a penny for every time Stuart's ended with, "If they'd been wearing seatbelts, they'd have walked clear with bruising..."

LabRat

I don't think it's controversial so much as there are still plenty of idiots out there... here in NC, it's "Click it or Ticket." (In our accent it rhymes, really )

PJ

My car, like those of my parents, has a special feature. (Sadly, I have to explain this feature far more often to adults than kids, and the KIDS don't usually argue about it.)

It doesn't move unless all passengers are properly belted in. Period.

Most of the moms I know have the same rule, Rivka. I know I do, as do all my friends that I can think of.

The people I know who have taken grief about it are those who married people from other countries and the in-laws think they are crazy for putting their kids in carseats. Both a friend (whose mother-in-law lives in Mexico) and my brother (whose mother-in-law lives in Japan) have told of huge arguments to make the grandmas put their new grandbabies in carseats. They were each told it was "cruel" to make the baby ride in the carseat and they would be "so much safer in my arms". In each case, the only thing that convinced them was to be told it was the law in the US, that babies *must* be restrained. But even then, they had to listen to grumbling the whole car trip from the airport (after picking up said MIL for her visit to see the new baby).

I don't know what the laws are in those countries -- and I know my brother's MIL is from a very rural area, not a big city, so she might just not know what Toyko's law is, for example -- but clearly the US isn't the only country struggling with convincing everyone that seatbelts are the safest way to go.

Kathy

I agree, Kathy -- most parents do.

Sadly, all too many OTHER adults (including ones who are theoretically quite intelligent) do not. As I said, I've had adults object to my requirement far more often than kids. :rolleyes:

There are still a lot of arguments from the people who don't wear seatbelts, with "it's not comfortable" being one of the major reasons. Which I can see. One car I drove, unless I had a pillow at my back, the seatbelt would literally strangle me. (it was a bench seat that leaned too far back. The pillow made me sit up straighter, and made it a heck of a lot easier to see over the steering wheel) Then you hear safety reasons to not wear a seatbelt: My ex-stepmother rolled her car when she was 17, and survived. If she had been wearing a seatbelt, she wouldn't have legs right now. (Though that might not be a bad thing... bad Karen, stop that! )

Granted, those are extreme reasons, but sometimes it's hard to convert those who don't wear seatbelts. I used to not wear a seatbelt, but now it's a habit. *shrug*

Rivka, I've never heard of anything like that, but my parents' car had a thing in it that makes it start ringing this annoying tone if the driver isn't belted.

I've had to wear seatbelts even before I was allowed to sit in the front. The car my parents owned in Israel when I was about 4 or 5 didn't even have seatbelts in the back. Later they got a car with them, and I'm so used to it that I feel very prone to danger without it. My dad is very strict about the seatbelt issue, but most drivers I know aren't- everytime my best friend's father drives us somewhere we both sit in the back and I put it on while she doesn't, for example.

Julie

I didn't watch the video. I didn't dare. I don't like rolling cars. After all,I've been inside three rolling cars in my life.

The first time I was 15. My boyfriend at the time was driving and I was distracting him. We hit the side of the road and he couldn't bring it back. The people behind us said that we rolled three times before coming to a stop. We weren't wearing seatbelts. I ended up getting thirteen stitches in my head.

The second time was with my parents and bunch of other people in a RV. There weren't enough seat belts in the back. I ended up on the bottom of the pile when the vehicle came to a stop.

The last time was last spring. I was driving - just me and the dog were in the car. And this time, I had my seatbelt on. I ended up hanging from the roof by my seatbelt. I didn't have as much as a scratch on me. (The dog was fine, too - even though she wasn't wearing a seatbelt ) When they pulled the car out of the ditch, the cop looked at me and said, "You got out of that!"

I'm definitely in favor of seatbelts (I'm just not sure my heart can take watching a video of a rolling car ).

ML

EDIT: Oh, wait! I assumed that the car in the video rolls. I'm not entirely sure why I thought it rolls. Can someone tells me if it does? It might be interesting watching it - provided the car doesn't roll. I don't like rolling cars.

ML- the car doesn't roll. It's doesn't even move. We only see the guy move because the camera is located above the steering wheel. It's safe for you to watch that.

Julie