My father has in the past couple of years (maybe even 10) stopped wearing his seat belt. This is unsafe behavior for any driver, even more so for his inattentiveness and accident history. I worry about him, especially since he doesn’t have health insurance for such an emergency. When I go home to visit, I insist that he put on his seat belt, but he shrugs off the request as an
inconsequential matter of preference. As much as I try to reason/threaten him (in loving manipulative ways), he simply won’t compromise. He is a religious, but otherwise intelligent man, hopelessly stubborn. Is there any way to get him to change his ways? I haven’t lived at home for 5 years, so there is no way for me to enforce this.
Thanks,
N
Since you’re looking for advice rather than facts, I’ll move this thread to IMHO.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Alas, probably not. I got my father towear his seat belt basically just by pestering him after I got my license, and it became habit. If you’ve tried to reason with him, I dunno what else you can do. Insist on driving whenever possible and refuse to move the car forward until his belt is on. At least he’ll be safe then.
Some people just seem to be utterly irrational about this issue. A couple of years ago we had an otherwise reasonably non-idiotic poster on this board who said “I don’t wear my seat belt. It doesn’t make you safer. It’s just 50/50 either way.” The stupefying idiocy of such a statement suggests to me it was a deep-rooted, non-rational preference.
Start by convincing him to buy a new car.
I never used to wear my seat belt until I bought a new car. (Not out of concious choice, mind you, but simply because I forgot.) The new car featured an incredibly obnoxious beeping alarm which would not stop until the driver put on the seat belt.
I wrote a letter of thanks to the car company for their horribly annoying alarm after my car accident. Had I not been endlessly pestered by that damn thing, I might have been seriously injured when I was struck.
Maybe your dad doesn’t want to feel safe.
IMHO thats why there are so many accidents.
People feel they have their seatbelts on and feel so safe they do foolish things.
Perhaps if they didn’t feel safe they would be more careful and pay more attention to driving .
I don’t feel safer with a seatbelt on.
I feel my movement is restricted and tied to the seat and uncomfortable.
Perhaps he has had an accident like I had and feels that if it were not for the seatbelt he wouldn’t have
been injured.
How old is your Dad.
Its amazing how young folks think us oldsters have lost our capacity to think for ourselvs.
People do foolish things because people are stupid.
If someone refuses to wear their seatbelt in order to not feel safe, so as to reduce their propensity for doing foolish things, then they must obviously feel that they’re safer with their seatbelt off, and then your original premise kicks in and they’re more likely to have an accident.
Whether or not you feel safer is irrelevant. What’s important is that you are safer.
Your movement is restricted? You’re in a frickin’ car! What movements could you possibly be wishing to perform that would require you to be in a position that the seatbelt won’t allow?
Besides which, the whole “the seatbelt is uncomfortable” thing goes away once you start wearing one regularly.
It’s very rare for someone to be more injured while wearing a seatbelt than they would have been without it. The odds of being seriously injured are certainly greater for the non-seatbelt-wearers.
I had a friend who thought it was cool not to wear a seat belt… I really don’t know. Do you get extra “chicks” when you don’t wear a seat belt? He soon got into a really bad wreak the almost killed him… he wears it all the time now. (Good for him!)
I’ve got one thing to say: Beware of people who telll tails like “IF he had on his on his seat belt he would of been killed…” WHATEVER… have faith in the people who design your cars amd you’ll be that much more ready.
People who think like that get into a bad habit of thinking about that in every little situation and it’s easy to see it in their actions. Does your father do this kind of thing in other situations? Is he “easy going”? Not to say it’s always bad… I will not have that held above my head, but you know what I mean, right?
I know there are people who won’t wear them. But why did he wear them and then stop? That’s not stubbornness, that’s contrary orneriness.
Bug your father to no end and threaten to cut off your relationship, if that’s what it takes. Let him know that you care and will not accept less.
Has your father ever got a ticket for not wearing one? (That’s one way to stop it… FEAR that is… what a terrble truth that is)
Recently they upped the fine for not wearing one and so my MIL started wearing hers. When I asked her about it she said it had to do with the new ‘click it or ticket’ campaign.
Boggles my mind that the thought of being tossed through the windshied was not the incentive a fine is when it comes to wearing a seatbelt.
I told her I don’t want her setting that kind of example for my kids so if she wants to be in a car with them then she will wear a seatbelt.
Oh and my mother won’t wear hers… too uncomfortable… so she buckles it and then sits on top of the seatbelt so the alarm will shut off.
You can point out to him that he could be responsible for your death/injury as well as his own if he’s unbelted. Passengers not strapped in will fly all over the place in a rolling car. In my hometown a couple years ago, six teenage girls were killed when their car went off the road. The only one wearing a seatbelt was the driver, and she died of a broken neck when the unbelted ones smashed into her.
Are intelligent religious people an anomaly?
I don’t know what would work except talking to him about it, and even then it might very well not do any good.
We’ve had similar discussions with my mom about her smoking, and the only thing we got out of it is very upset people on all sides.
Good luck. Just be prepared for the behavior to continue no matter what you do.
One excuse my father uses is that one of the vehicles he drives has airbags. So he is thinking of safety on one level, using this airbag as an excuse to not use a simpler and more effective device (that should be worn even in a car with airbags to avoid getting thrown in an accident). Of course his other vehicle is a truck with no airbags.
He just turned 50 and doesn’t seem concerned for his health. He got a clean bill from his doctor, but he is overweight, has a bad diet, and doesn’t excercise. This to me is like riding without seatbelts, only much slower.
I think a ticket would encourage him to start wearing one more, if only a cop would pull him over. Should I be an anonomous tipster?
N.
Except from refusing to drive with anyone who is not wearing a seat belt, there is not much you can do. Emotional blackmail is possible, but I’m not sure it’s the correct thing to do in this (or any)instance. Is it possible that he is suffering from neck or back problems that make it difficult for him to look arround whilst wearing a seatbelt, and which he is keeping quiet about?
If he won’t wear one for the safety issue my only idea is to stress that it is the law (isn’t it true in every state now?) Will he wear one for the sake of being a law-abiding citizen?
Recently my area had a big crackdown on giving tickets to people for not wearing seatbelts, any hope that this would happen inyour area?
If I was really concerned, maybe I would try to find a friendly officer (do you know anyone?) who would be willing to keep an eye out for his car - if he got a ticket or a warning from an officer do you think that would change his mind?
Aside - I get annoyed too when people break out the 'I have a friend who was in an accident and if he was wearing a seat belt he would have been trapped and died…" For every story like this there are probably a hundred where someone was killed or injured because they weren’t wearing one. All it takes is one time. Personal anecdote here, the one time I did not put a seatbelt on I was in an accident. (we had just pulled out of a parking lot and I just hadn’t put in on yet). Now it is on before the car gets put into gear. It wasn’t a very bad accident but I was obviously hurt in a way that would have been prevented if I had a seatbelt on. (It is amazing how flung around you get at impact even at a relatively low speed. I broke the sun visor with my head and ended up half on the floor, half on the driver’s lap. This was even with time to ‘brace myself’. HA.)
A while later I was in a very similar accident (with the same person driving - I still have to give her a hard time about that, she was determined to total that van) with my seat belt on this time. We actually hit a little harder this time and I was not injured. Having first hand comparison of accidents with and without a seat belt, I choose to always wear one. I always recommend people just go with me on this one, although they are free to try it for themselves:).
I thought airbags were more dangerous without a seatbelt since you are thrown all the way into the airbag which is inflating rapidly enough to kill small children… I’d like the seatbelt to help lessen that jolt!
You could butter his seat. That way a belt is the only way he’ll be able to stay in place wherever he goes around a corner, accelerates, stops, etc.
Airbags don’t work if you’re rear-ended, do they? So that “rationale” only applies if he plans on hitting someone himself. If he gets hit, it’s the seatbelt that’ll make the difference.
Also, air bags are supposed to be used in conjunction WITH the seatbelt, if I’m not mistaken.