SAFETY BELTS REVISITED
WRECK-LESS DRIVING©
by Gunther Doerfert, Auto Safety Columnist
SAFETY BELTS REVISITED
ANYWHERE, USA: In recent years we have, annually, killed more than 42,000 persons on our Nation’s highways and injured about 3 million more. These motor vehicle collisions cost our economy nearly 150 billion dollars each year. Drug and alcohol problems are involved with about 40% of these fatalities and injuries. I have written often about these scourges of roadway safety but the misuse of chemical substances is difficult to change. Another large contributor to these terrible statistics is the failure to use automobile safety belts.
These belts are in every passenger automobile, except some very old ones. Why so many drivers and riders do not use them is a mystery. Occupants are four times more likely to be significantly injured or killed if they are thrown out of the vehicle. They can be flung as much as 15 car lengths away. Yet this widely known information is not sufficient for some persons – something about freedom and too much government regulation.
Only about one half of one percent of the crashes which cause personal injury involve water submersion or fire. Years of experience with safety belts prove that users of safety belts are less injured and more able to escape from a burning or submersed vehicle than those not so belted.
Seventy-five percent of deathly crashes happen within 25 miles of the home location. The greatest number of collisions happen at speeds of less than 35 mph. Crashes at as low as 12 mph have killed persons not wearing the provided belts. Older occupants are more fragile and are seriously injured and killed at low speeds. Wear the safety devices whenever the vehicle is moving, even on parking lots. Head and chest injuries are minimized by the shoulder belt thus making contact with the dashboard, windshield and steering wheel less likely.
Air bags, and now also side airbags in addition to lap and shoulder safety belts, give the best available protection. It is poor judgment to not use the belts because there are air bags in the vehicle. Lap belts alone are of slight protection.
In some states the traffic police cannot stop a moving vehicle just for non-use of the belts. Because so many of us still insist on our right not to use these life and limb savers more state legislatures are permitting law enforcement to stop and cite people primarily for this infraction, including all passengers.
GHD177 all rights reserved
by Gunther Doerfert, Auto Safety Columnist
SAFETY BELTS REVISITED
ANYWHERE, USA: In recent years we have, annually, killed more than 42,000 persons on our Nation’s highways and injured about 3 million more. These motor vehicle collisions cost our economy nearly 150 billion dollars each year. Drug and alcohol problems are involved with about 40% of these fatalities and injuries. I have written often about these scourges of roadway safety but the misuse of chemical substances is difficult to change. Another large contributor to these terrible statistics is the failure to use automobile safety belts.
These belts are in every passenger automobile, except some very old ones. Why so many drivers and riders do not use them is a mystery. Occupants are four times more likely to be significantly injured or killed if they are thrown out of the vehicle. They can be flung as much as 15 car lengths away. Yet this widely known information is not sufficient for some persons – something about freedom and too much government regulation.
Only about one half of one percent of the crashes which cause personal injury involve water submersion or fire. Years of experience with safety belts prove that users of safety belts are less injured and more able to escape from a burning or submersed vehicle than those not so belted.
Seventy-five percent of deathly crashes happen within 25 miles of the home location. The greatest number of collisions happen at speeds of less than 35 mph. Crashes at as low as 12 mph have killed persons not wearing the provided belts. Older occupants are more fragile and are seriously injured and killed at low speeds. Wear the safety devices whenever the vehicle is moving, even on parking lots. Head and chest injuries are minimized by the shoulder belt thus making contact with the dashboard, windshield and steering wheel less likely.
Air bags, and now also side airbags in addition to lap and shoulder safety belts, give the best available protection. It is poor judgment to not use the belts because there are air bags in the vehicle. Lap belts alone are of slight protection.
In some states the traffic police cannot stop a moving vehicle just for non-use of the belts. Because so many of us still insist on our right not to use these life and limb savers more state legislatures are permitting law enforcement to stop and cite people primarily for this infraction, including all passengers.
GHD177 all rights reserved
posted by WRECK-LESS at Friday, August 10, 2007
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home