Our Auto World: June 2007

If there is one issue that should no longer be a problem in our society with regards to automobiles it should be riders wearing their seat belts. There is no logical reason for a person riding in an automobile not to wear their seatbelt. Study after study has proven that safety belts increase your chance of survival in an accident, and increase your overall safety in an automobile period. So the question always remains “Why do people still not wear their seatbelt?” People who do not wear their seat belts are proven wrong almost daily, and the cost is usually significant, their life. Yet no matter the statistics, they still do not comply. Why? Mostly for stubborn reasons, but underneath all the stubborn reasons is a sense that some people want to believe they control technology, they have mastered technology, and that they, not technology, control their destiny. And a simple act such as not wearing a seat belt is an act of defiance to the idea that the technology known as an automobile can kill or harm someone. And until every possible idea that is given for not wearing a seat belt is proven wrong, then we will continue to see lives uselessly wasted and a law as easy as wearing a seat belt continually defied.

In 2004 alone, 42,636 people died from car crashes in the United States, 55 percent of those killed were not wearing their seat belts.[1] This statistic alone should deter anyone who thinks of not buckling up. Over half of the deaths of automobile accidents could have been prevented by something as easy as buckling a seat belt. But these numbers alone do not mean anything to people. As a society, we have become numb to death toll numbers. With over 400,000 dead in the region of Darfur,[2] over 3,533 American soldiers killed in the Iraq War,[3] and over 650,000 Iraqi citizens dead because of the war,[4] overall numbers just do not mean as much to us as a society anymore. People now need statistics that directly effect or relate to them to comprehend or begin to care about anything. That is why statistics must be shown to combat directly the excuses made by riders in automobiles about why they do not buckle up.

One common excuse is distance. An example of this type of excuse is, “Well I am only going twenty minutes down the road; I do not need to buckle up because I will be right there.” But according to statistics, this is not a valid excuse; actually it is the most critical time people should put their seat belts on. 80 percent of all traffic fatalities occur within 25 miles of the victim’s home and at speeds less than 40 miles per hour.[5] That is not just an above average number, but an astonishing one. That means that out of the over 42,000 car crash fatalities a year, 33,600 fatalities occur within 25 miles of the crash victim’s home. So the quick run to the store to buy a carton of milk, or a pack of cigarettes, potentially becomes the most dangerous drive a person ever makes. If one were to think about this for a minute, it would make complete sense. When you are out driving in familiar territory, you tend to let your guard down because you think you know your surroundings. Whereas, if you were driving in an unfamiliar territory, you would be more aware of your surroundings because you are not used to the driving conditions of that certain area. So this theory of “I am just going a few minutes down the road” should not be used by drivers and passengers because it has been proven over and over again to statistically not be true.

The next most common excuse can be summed up by calling it cockiness, or the “I am too good a driver to get in an accident” excuse. Chances are that you are not as good a driver as you think you are, but even if you are, people using this excuse are forgetting one vital thing about accidents, and that is the fact that in a number of accidents there are two cars, not one. And while their excuse may be valid and they may actually be a good driver, as the Oklahoma State study questions, what is to prevent a bad driver from hitting you?[6] This is a question they will not be able to answer, because even with their cockiness, if they are integrated at all with society they will know two things: there are a lot of bad drivers on the road and that they are unpredictable. A number of people can convey their point of view if no facts are involved, but when facts are in play, their irrational actions become harder to pass off as rational.

The most common excuse that is rarely argued against is drivers or riders being afraid the seat belt will trap them in the car. But once again, with a little research and factual knowledge this argument can be easily refuted as well. Statistically, the best place to be during an accident is in your car.[7] If one is thrown out of a car, they are 25 times more likely to die.[8] And as the Oklahoma Study points out, in the case that one needs to get out of the car in a hurry, due to fire or submergence, they have a lot better chance of unhooking their seat belt as opposed to being knocked unconscious from the accident due to not wearing a seat belt.[9] When combating this excuse, the main thing to acknowledge is that freak accidents do occur. The admission that these incidents do occur conveys to the people not wearing seat belts that you do not have anything to hide when presenting statistics about seat belt safety. Sure, there have been a few instances where someone was trapped by their seat belt, but they have to ask themselves, do they want to take their odds on something that may or may not happen, or their odds on something they know will almost for a fact happen if they do not wear their seat belt.

Trying to get people to fully comply with any law is tough, let alone laws that constrict the very way one functions in their private automobile. But throwing fact after fact about the overall importance of wearing seat belts will not help you comply. A combination of things must happen for total compliance, such as leveling with them, disproving their often absurd excuses for not wearing seat belts, and introducing heavier fines for noncompliance for starters. Unfortunately, we still seem to be at the leveling with them, and often let them make excuses without trying to disprove them. But if society would put forth the effort to simply challenge these excuses on a factual basis, none of them could be considered practical reasons for not wearing a seat belt. The reason for the continued use of excuses such as these is not because the overall population is uneducated about seat belt safety, but that we are vastly uneducated in the aspects of seat belt safety that we think apply to us. To most, wearing a seat belt is not even a real issue anymore. In every way it seems in our best interest to comply with this law. But unfortunately, statistics prove refusal to wear seat belts is still a fatal problem. This incompetence and carelessness cannot go on any longer. There are certain lines of disobedience that people have drawn within our society as far as what one conforms to and does not conform to, but wearing a seat belt can no longer be one of those lines. Wearing a seat belt accomplishes no great stance of civil disobedience, in fact most people do not even know you do not wear one until you become another victim. Why let your selfish motives get in the way of overall public safety? We can no longer be a reactive society, thinking that non-seat belt users will learn their lesson, because they will not. Take the facts to them to prove their theories wrong, and with a little help from increasing the penalty for not complying with seat belt laws, we can hopefully finally lay this issue of wearing or not wearing a seat belt to rest.