Who’s beating on Whitey? And what makes any of this “hostile?” Looks like a bunch of people discussing their take on the pushing of seatbelt use.
This thread is not hostile. There is no beating. Whitey is as tough and seasoned as many of us. You are leaping to conclusions. I am sure he is sitting in his lazy boy posting and taking no offense.
At a T intersection, Virginia driver went through his stop sign from a side street and broadsided father’s company Chevrolet. My seat-belt kept me secure and unharmed.
1961 Volvo 544 was my first car.
A junkyard 544 had blood, skin, and hair in the windshield bulged-out by someone’s head.
Bought the combination seal-belt/shoulder harnesses in it and installed them in my 544, which already had the threaded holes for the safety-belt bolts and metal piece to which the buckles fastened.
In my EMS career,countless unnecessary deaths and injuries by those not wearing easily worn and effective seat-belts. Darwin Award winners and contenders.
In China the passenger is wearing the seat-belt/shoulder harness but the driver is not, apparently thinking s/he is protected by the steering wheel.
I think seat belt protects the driver even before the collision occurs. When necessary, the driver should be held in place by side bolster and seat belt in order to manipulate the controls effectively. Bracing oneself with the steering wheel is not an accident avoidance technique.
Furthermore, passengers need to be secured by seat belt and not interfering with the driver’s control of the vehicle by sliding around inside the vehicle. That’s how I got into my first accident when my friend lost control of his truck as bench seat had no center belt. We were lucky that no one was flung from the truck
chunky is right. Every occupant should be properly belted for the safety of the other occupants and proper operation of the car. Race drivers, cops and all other professionals are required. Being belted in an airplane is to keep you from being a projectile. Belt the chidren then become a hazard yourself. It’s an absolute no brainer requirement and has Nothing to do with personal rights. You’re operating on a public highway…it’s the law. Too many of us think being in our car is like In our home and we can do what we damn we please. We hear the same argument when it comes to mandatory safety features designed to save lives of not just the operators, but everyone else as well. Line up and get a dope slap…Whitey has a good point.
I have stories about this fact too.
----being belted in, gives the driver optimum control.----
I can tell you two or three potential accidents that NEVER occured,
because being belted allowed multi-limb actions ( 4x4 lever, steering, brake or accelerator, downshift ) that resulted in vehicle attitude correction and being able to fully regain control.
“Consider that your medical insurance costs, and mine, and everyone else’s, are impacted (no pun intended) by the vastly increased hospital fees …”
You can make that argument for just about anything, eating red meat, eggs, skydiving, swimming, even driving a model T can increase your medical insurance costs and hospital fees, after all they aren’t as safe as a new car, etc.
That argument is a red herring, because I can say that just about anything you do will drive up medical insurance costs and increase hospital fees and use that to force you to do whatever, I could ban red meat, force you to buy a new car every time a new safe feature was mandated.
By allowing the government to slowly tell you what you can and can’t do is giving them power over you, soon they will own you and you will have no choices to make and no freedom. And you will have given them your freedom, happily, for the safety of the children, etc.
I can make a good case that you don’t even own your own body. But that for another post.
My opinions are subject to change with new facts.
One of the big reasons for the seat-belt laws, are the huge fines.
It generally goes like this.
A law is passed saying people should wear a seat belt, but it won’t be a primary reason to stop a person, and there won’t be any fine issued, just points. That way a person who isn’t wearing a seat-belt will see their insurance rates go up.
A little while later, they add a small fine. After all there should be some consequences for not wearing a seat belt, so a small fine 10 - 25 dollars is add but it’s still not a primary reason to stop someone.
Then a little while later, people just aren’t taking the seat-belt law seriously enough, so the fine is raised to 50 to 100.
Then a little while later, they say “if the officer can clearly see that person isn’t wearing a seat-beat they should be able to stop them and give them a ticket.” So now it a primary offense and the fine goes up again.
When I left Washington state the fine was $350 plus points, you could get the points removed by going to class.
Now I live in ND and I’m seeing the same thing. Slowly the fine is increasing and it’s now a primary offense.
This law is more about raising money then safety.
My opinions are subject to change with new facts.
“Now I live in ND and I’m seeing the same thing”.
You mean to tell me that you have to wear your seatbelt in your dogsled?
(Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one).
Most commercials I see on television are not worthy of the money the clients pay advertising companies to make for them. From my perspective, this commercial rates much higher than most commercials. It was very easy to understand, especially when some commercials fail at getting the message to viewers. I liked how no words were spoken. I can understand some of the negative comments I’ve read regarding this commercial, but overall, wearing seat belts is better than not wearing seat belts. It’s not - not wearing seat belts that concerns me. What concerns me is drunk drivers, drivers who fall asleep at the wheel, driving in excess of 50-miles over the speed limit (especially if your tires are bald or showing the steel belts in the tires) and other similar issues. Because of people making bad driving decisions, we should use our seat belts - for OUR safety.
Don’t use dogsleds any more, we use snowmobiles and they don’t have seat-belts.
My opinions are subject to change with new facts.
I actually have no idea how this ended up here. This was originally posted a long time ago way up toward the beginning in conversation with Whitey.
There have been strange things going on with the website lately.
It actually looks like the original post from Whitey, to which this was a response, is just completely gone. I guess this reply lost its anchor and fell to the end.
Oh, and I’ll just jab back. Wow, Car Guy, how many times are you going to produce reply boxes with nothing of any serious content? You must like to hear yourself type stuff while saying nothing.
I don’t understand how mandatory seat belt use is justified when motorcycles are still legal.