im starting this thread to talk about the simple but effective engineering on seatbelt reminders.

i used to have a habit of not buckling up in time and ive been in several incidents where i was glad i was reminded to buckle up.

in one case i was in a car with a friend where he decided he wanted to take a S-curve exit ramp at 65mph. we did a 180 and smacked into the guard wall. the seat belt kept me planted and without it my head would have gone threw the passenger window.

anyone else have similar experiences?

 

this is an obvious reference to another thread that was posted earlier. If the attack becomes anymore obvious the thread will be locked.

 

I had two incidents where I broke windshields with my face because I wasn't wearing my seatbelt. In the first I was driving, and wasn't hurt because it was fairly low speed, and I hit the visor band I had. That prevented me from being cut, but it still broke the windshield. In the second, I was a passenger and we hit black ice and slid into a multicar pile-up. That time I was in the hospital for five hours while they picked bits of glass out of my face, and put some stitches in my broken and cut nose.

I figure those are my two strikes. Since then, I don't start my car until the belt is in place. Just my personal choice, but someone much smarter than I said this (I wish I could remember who, to give proper credit): A fool learns from his own mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Based on the above, I consider myself the former.

 

My wife suffered laserations to her face and a bloody nose from a fairly minor prang as a child growing up in Thailand while not wearing a seatbelt.

Even 3rd world countries now know the importance of wearing seat belts. But in the land of the free they'll always be those free to kill themselves but its not very fair to other road users or passengers.

 

Vivid: I know you are also a motorcyclist. What really gets me is the "ride free" helmetless crowd. The one real hope is they cull themselves from the herd before passing on their DNA.

On ya!

 

Very interesting article.

http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/Ar...ID=17752&vf=12

 

luckily I've never been in any real major accident but for sure I'm always having my seat belt on cause I don't get a freaken ticket.. cops in Houston are a**hoes bout that.

 

four accidents, all wearing seatbelts. the third one i was rear ended by a volvo while driving my '96 accord.... i got a concussion and was out of it for like eight months while wearing a seatbelt. i don't want to think of what might have happened if i hadn't been.

 

I got a 2nd chance: Rusty Dodge Dart, I riding shotgun, 70's station wagon crosses double yellow. Results: Full impact to her passenger side at 45 mph, engine and tranny head for the back seat, I had no belt on but enough reaction to get down and tight to the dash. Our pooch took out the windshield. My bro had the steering wheel tattooed to his chest. I lost hair and a quarter-size piece of scalp. And a reattached pinky. Never been unbelted since then (1982)

 

A seatbelt saved my life once.

I was in my first car, a 1986 Acura Integra (this was in 1994), stopped at a light behind about 6 other cars, just down the street from my highschool. (I was heading there for the first night of our annual talent show. I wasn't IN it that night, I was playing in a jazz ensamble the next night, though). I had just filled up my gas tank and headed out to make the U turn to head back toward my school. I noticed a car pass, with a young couple, the woman driving and the guy in the passenger seat... with their baby ON HIS LAP! I thought "man, what a dumbass, they need to get busted for that. Then a sheriff came up the small hill, lights blazing and pulled them over. YEAH!

So I make my U-turn and fall in behind some stopped cars. The sheriff was about 50 yards back in the right hand lane. I was in the middle lane, and the left lane was the turning lane.

For some reason, I look up to my rearview and see this small red vehicle suddenly getting MUCH BIGGER. I put more pressure on the brakes, because I knew the 'tard was going to hit me.

BAM! He hit me, and slammed me into the car in front of me, a brand new Toyota Camry.. which was slammed into the truck in front of it, which put a pretty good dent in the bumper of the Jimmy in front of it.

My car was, I sjit you not, 5 feet shorter after that. I had my seatbelt on, and STILL, my face hit the steering wheel, so I had a good size black eye for the last month of my senior year of highschool. THAT was fun.

The guy that hit me was a junior at the time. Blonde guy, just as ditzy as any blonde chick I've ever met. He was distracted by the flashy lights on the sheriff's car and didn't happen to notice the TWO DOZEN or so cars stopped at the RED LIGHT. He hit me doing probably 40-45mph.

I ALWAYS wear my seatbelt. My parents got me into the habit of buckling up EVERY time I get in a car. It's just habit now. I don't need a dinger to remind me. Neither should you.

 

My mother was a nurse 20 years ago and she used to not wear her seatbelt. She says she had seen patients with badly bruised abdomens from seatbelts in accidents. I asked her if she could imagine what those patients would look like if they didn't have their belt on? Most likely she would not have even seen them in ER, they would have gone directly to the morgue. When she is in my car, for some reason, the car won't move unless she puts on her belt...
She got a little 6" extention thingy for her belt and she is able to get it buckled more easily now and, as far as I know, she always buckles up.

 

I too make everyone buckle up in my car. Not only because I can get a ticket (for front passenger, at least), but because I don't want to have anyone's death on my conscience.

Anyway, my younger sister's roomate in college didn't like wearing a seatbelt. So I went up to OU to help them move out of their dorm into an apartment since I had a truck at the time. Her roomate gets in my truck and then waits for me to go. I told her to put her seatbelt on... then she says:

"what, you don't trust in your driving ability?"

to which I replied

"I trust mine, but I don't trust everyone else's"

She buckled up every time she got in my truck since then.. .which was not many times.

 

Oh yeah, sisters fiancee: thrown from vehicle as passed out passenger to a speeding, drunk 'designated' driver. No seat belt. Killed in a horrible and tragic way.

 

on the other side of things (although i do personally advocate buckling up) my sister and her mom were riding without seatbelts and the woman driving got freaked out because there was a bee in the car. the car ended up going over a cliff and down into a ravine, but they all survived because, without seatbelts, they were able to bounce around. depends on the accident, though.

 

Most of the time, not being belted and rolling the vehicle, will result in you being thrown from it (once the windows blow out), in a very nasty, nasty way.

My father and brother used to volunteer with the local fire department. Some of the scenes they came upon were horrific enough to make me paranoid about not having mine on. I feel nekkid without it.

 

Why not start a thread with the sole goal of giving examples of when seatbelts have potentially saved lives.

Indicating this thread is related to "the simple but effective engineering on seatbelt reminders" makes this nothing more than a thread to go against the guy who asked for a method to disable the seatbelt reminder on his car. The guy asked nicely and asked to not be lectured. I don't know why anyone took any offense to his thread.

 

A friend of a friend knew a guy whose grandfather's nephew heard about a gal whose dentist worked on the teeth of a person whose mom got trapped by a seatbelt after it flipped over a bridge into an icy river... :P

Actually, my wife's grandparents don't wear theirs for a reason that isn't exactly dissimilar to that excuse...

 

click it or ticket

 

T-boned a minivan that ran a red light in my '89 Mazda 626 with worthless electric seatbelts. Minor accident for them, but I got a chest full of steering wheel. 3 broken ribs, a few staples in my head, and bruises galore.

 

this reply isnt directed at you, but 90% of people believe they are above average drivers, 41% of them are wrong.