My standard response to that kind of comment is: “I don’t trust every other driver on the road.”
I’ve had people laugh at me for buckling up in the back seat. I don’t understand it.
When people don’t wear their seatbelt in the back seat of my car, I make my turns sharper so they go flying around the back seat. It’s leather seats too, so you slide even more. It’s fun for me, and hopefully it teaches them a lesson about the physics of car accidents. Though one time I felt bad cause my sister ended up hitting her head on the door (on the opposite side of the car). Usually, next time they get in my car they buckle up and I drive normally.
I won’t drive if the front passenger isn’t wearing their seatbelt, as the airbag is deadly without the seatbelt.
I’m just barely old enough to remember when states started enacting seatbelt laws across the board - I remember the entire family getting into the car and never buckling up and I remember what a nuisance it used to be when the laws changed to actually reach over and fasten the stupid thing. Now? Second nature. I wouldn’t dream of getting into a car and not buckling up. 'Course, Dad’s a doctor too, so I’ve heard about the advantages.
I’ve never heard of people thinking it’s strange to buckle up in the back seat - that’s a new one.
My roommate in college told me that her mother absolutely refused to wear a seatbelt, citing the fact that she was around when seatbelt use was not mandatory and didn’t like the feel due to the “new” laws. Bullsh*t, says I. My parents are of the exact same generation, Mr. Snicks’ parents are of the exact same generation, hell, my grandparents are older! and every one of them buckles up, every time. Never did understand it.
Snicks
Unless you spend more time in your car than you do at home, I think this is wrong.
Yes, but the bottom line is that the decision of what constitutes “reasonable precaution” is something that must be decided by the individual parent (as opposed to self-righteous know-it-alls on message boards ). I mean, I can’t comprehend the idea of smokers who have children, but they do, and it’s not my business to dictate to them otherwise.
Don’t forget bathtubs! Best to throw out the bathtubs and just hose off your kid in the yard instead.
And as for the toilets… well, there’s an old Sears catalog behind the tree there.
I’m not going to wander the streets forcing parents to buckle up but if I’m in a car with them whether I am the driver or not, those kids better be belted in. Fortunatly for me the Aussie laws think like I do and require everyone to have a seatbelt on - or is it that I have been so trained by the Aussie laws that I think the way I do. Ok must stop trying to analyse self before sunrise…
See you are just dead wrong there ;), everyone with the least bit of commonsense knows that Sears catalogs leave papercuts in nasty places. A responsible parent would leave out the hose for the kids to clean themselves up with after using the potty.
I lived in one town worked in antoher. In the “work” town, for some reason, people just didn’t wear seatbelts. I had a co-worker who was mad as hell because they had a crackdown and she’d been ticketed TWICE in one week. $100 bucks each time!
I dated boy from the “work” town and we got in a huge argument. When he said, “so what are you going to do about it?” I pulled over, and we sat, parked on the side of the road, locked ina battle of wills for ten minutes before he bickled up so we wouldn’t be late.
My boyfriend before that however, was quite the opposite. He’d witness an accident inwhich the occupants of a van were NOT wearing their seatbelts. They’d lost control of their van and it had rolled. Though they hadn’t hit anything, they were thrown through the windshiled and the van had rolled over them. It was late at night, so my (now-ex) boyfriend had to sit with his friends at the side of the road and watch these squashed individuals bleed to death for over a half hour (oneof them went for help). The victims were still vaguely conscious and were moaning/gurgling in pain during their slow death.
Not to take the thread in the other direction, but…
A good friend of my mother absolutely refuses to wear a seat belt- she was in an accident years ago (broad-sided by a semi on the highway). She happened to be not wearing a seat belt at the time and was thrown across the car into the passenger’s seat when the car slammed into the embankment. The entire driver’s side of the car was crushed by the semi. She walked away without a scratch, but knew that if she’d been belted, she’d have been killed. She hasn’t worn one since.
Of course, that’s just her. I wear mine all the time.
Insert “roommate” for “wife” here, and you’re talking about mine. She’s never worn a seatbelt. She’s been in several accidents, including being thrown from a rolling convertible :eek: and she’s never had more than scratches. At this point she thinks she’s invincible or something.
I suppose I don’t think less of her, but it does bother me because I care about her. But she’s an adult, able to make her own choices.
Go alien, did you know that this is a common analogy used in business classes to warn managers-to-be of the risk of high debt causing bankruptcy? If they aren’t careful they get stabbed in the chest, but what about the market conditions (or the other drivers)?
***back to the OP:
A friend of mine died in a car wreck whose life could have been saved with a seatbelt. I still forget to put mine on sometimes and it doesn’t really affect my opinion of anyone I know. The analogy that comes to mind is: non-seatbelt wearers = cigarette smokers. They aren’t “logical” or concerned about “self-preservation” either. Do you feel the same way about your friends who smoke?
Smaft that does happen, but it’s very, very rare. In the very, very rare case, being thrown clear might help, but for a vast majority of cases, even a low speed collision can result in disasterous injuries because of the basic physics involved.
I was in a very, very, VERY low speed accident when I was a kid and the seat belt was defective. At less than 5 mph I was bounced like a pinball three times into the seat in front of me. I was hurt. I remember it vividly.
But once in a while, someone gets those one in a million odds. My cousin was in a wreck and the car was crushed. He had been (barely) thrown clear. He was very, very, VERY badly hurt nonetheless. He’s never been the same. He always wears a seatbelt though. He says that the worst memory was the “rag doll” feeling.
It doesn’t bother me too much at all. Kinda like smokers. It doesn’t bother me that they are killing themselves, unless the smoke blows my way.
I do know the feeling you are talking about, though. There is a group of folks that do certain things and it just throws a shadow of doubt over their entire thought process and I find them much less credible or “normal” and they make me wonder about them and somehow devalue what the say and do.
My mom and I are the kind of folks who claw madly at the seats when we are ina cab that has no readily available seatbelts. You should have seen us in Panama where the cabbies are marveloulsy mad and seatbelts are few.
One of the best memories of Panama is one insanely wild cab ride during rush hour.
I had that cab ride experience in Bangkok, sitting on the wrong side of the car with all this insane traffic, everyone tootling on their horns for no apparent reason, a freakin’ religious shrine on the dashboard in front of me (along with several fairly sharp items glued on and staring me in the face) and a broken seatbelt dangling uselessly over my left shoulder.
I was gripping the door handle and trying not to brace my feet against the dash.
I always wear my seatbelt, it’s just stupid not to. I always make people in my car wear one too. I have automatic seatbelts in my front seats, so I’m happy with one passenger because I know that I will most likely not have to argue with them.
I feel so adamant about seatbelts that I think that car manufacturers should put in devices that won’t let the car out of park unless every seat that has a person in it is buckled up. (And for manual transmissions, don’t let it get taken out of gear.) I do not think this is unreasonable in the least.
People who do not wear seatbelts are stupid…stupid stupid stupid. It’s worse than smoking, cause at least that has an excuse to do it (the excuse being that it is addictive…of course, I still fail to understand why one starts to smoke in the first place, though.)
My mother was in an accident as a teenager where the car she was in crashed into a body of water. She was able to escape because she had no seatbelt on. Her boyfriend died.
But she still wears hers, all the time.
Except the one time when she had a cyst taken out of her breast. The doc had to leave a drain in there for about a week. The seatbelt just happened to cross the area where the drain was located, so she went without.
She was pulled over by a cop, but when she threatened to show him the drain and wound, he had a change of heart and let her go.
). I mean, I can’t comprehend the idea of smokers who have children, but they do, and it’s not my business to dictate to them otherwise.