I often do not wear it if I am driving, and when I do, I generally take it off when backing up, as it prevents me from turning around properly to see behind me.
I’m a real Nazi about it. If you’re in my car, it doesn’t move until everyone has buckled. I won’t ride in a cab that doesn’t have them readily accessible.
Front or rear, I put on my seatbelt. I would not be alive today without seatbelts
Why would sitting in the front or back make a difference??
Anyway, I wear mine always.
Someone might erroneously think that in a head-on collision the back seat would be safe–that the front seat is the dangerous place. Not true for Princess Diana (see earlier cite).
Always, always, always.
The week that I first received my driver’s license, my cousin (and lifelong best friend), who’s a year older than me, had come to town with his parents to visit us. He’d been in a bad accident the week before, when a light truck had crossed the center line suddenly, and hit him head-on. He had his seat belt on, and all he suffered was a cut lip. The police officer who investigated the crash told him that, had he not been wearing the seatbelt, he would have been seriously injured, and possibly wouldn’t have walked away from the crash at all. That lesson sunk in.
If I’m driving, the car doesn’t even move until everyone’s buckled up.
Even back when a lot of the cars I owned didn’t come with seatbelts, I put in restraint systems and always used them. It gets clicked before the keys go in the ignition.
Actually, I wear two. One I put on backwards because of texters ramming me from the rear and I am not about to watch out for them.
There are laws, all that is needed you know, so it will be their fault…
I mean, the government must take care of me and make a law about what I must do if I am going to be able to go anywhere.
That is the democratic republic way. We voted to give up choices. I must comply… 
I always wear it on public property. Always.
The only time I might not wear it is on private property at a racing event when I am driving a short distance at low speeds and so is everyone else.
The only time I don’t wear a seatbelt is if I’m moving the car a very short distance from our driveway to the front yard: say 3 or 4m slow reverse and then a few metres forward onto some grass.
A few years back some friends of mine were in a car accident that involved a Toyota Hilux rolling several times (I arrived about a minute after the car stopped moving).
Five people in the car, the driver didn’t have a seatbelt on and was thrown out of the cabin - died a week later without regaining consciousness. The other four who did have belts on walked away with minor cuts and bruises.
That’s me.
And I have statistics on my side. 80-90% of all accidents are avoidable. Therefore, the most effective safety measure by far is to be a truly GOOD driver.
Seatbelts may, in fact, contribute to accidents, if the theory of risk homeostasis is correct.
However, their effectiveness is really irrelevant. The real issue is that seatbelt laws, helmet laws, and child seat laws are all wildly unconstitutional.
If we’re talking anecdotes–my grandmother knew a man who died in an accident because he was wearing a seltbelt. The car caught on fire; he panicked, and couldn’t undo the seatbelt.
If you are sitting in the back and not wearing a seatbelt, in a collision you can shoot forward and kill the person sitting in the seat in front of you.
I had a similar experience just before wearing seat belts became mandatory in Australia. I was thrown into the passenger’s lap when the driver’s door was pushed across to the center of the car. I would have been crushed if wearing a seatbelt. Despite that I always wear one.
Last weekend I wanted to drive to the shop two turns and 200 meters away from home to get something on the way to visit friends. I actually tried to take off without my seatbelt on but the red light was enough to force me to put it on.
So people who don’t wear it in the back seat are hoping for this effect, then? I’m asking about their reasoning why they would in the front seat but not in the back, you understand.
No. I addressed this:
People think that the back seat is “safer,” so you don’t need your seatbelt there.
And it is. “Riding shotgun” was also called being in the “death seat” when I was learning to drive.
It’s just not ‘safe enough.’ You’re obviously with a seat belt in the back seat than without one.
Every time on public roads or when I am moving any distance longer than my driveway.
My mother was badly injured but survived a terrible carwreck when I was about 5 and the only thing that saved her was that she was not wearing her seatbelt and was able to get out of the way of the steering column that embedded itself in the drivers seat where she had been. She still made us buckle up every time we were in the car, front seat or back.
I don’t often buckle up when I am a passenger in the back seat, but I probably will from now on.
What part of the Constitution do you think these laws violate? Feel free to cite controlling legal authority in support of your position.
Yes, I was expecting the poll result to be slanted towards the “right” answer (because I think people are more likely to answer a poll truthfully if they think they’re on the “good side”), but the almost universal “yes” put this idea to reast. At 95%, I believe it’s safe to assume that almost everybody actually buckle his belt.
I guess it shows my age. I’m 50 and remember when it became mandatory and a lot of people didn’t like it, refused to buckle up, feared being caught in a burning car because of the belt, argued about whether it was actually safer, etc… I somehow assumed it would still be true to some extent.
I’m assuming mentalities have since completely changed about this issue.
(FTR, I always buckle).