I didn’t finish my rant in my previous post, so sorry…
If most of the people who don’t wear a seat belt or complain about doing it all the time could see what an airbag can do to an unbelted occupant, they’d happily start buckling up!
Most (if not all) modern cars have seatbelt pretensioners that pull your upper body as far back into the seat as possible to prepare for the airbag to deploy. A tiny pyrotechnic charge goes off and the belt rapidly tightens until it meets a specific amount of resistance (such as a human torso). It puts you as far away as possible from the airbag, steering wheel and dashboard to protect your body from impact with any of them.
If you don’t wear a seatbelt, you are a human projectile flying full speed into the airbag and possibly the steering wheel/dash/windshield. When you and the airbag crash into one another, you’re more like a volleyball and could fly in any direction (into the roof pillar, on top of your passenger, in the back seat, out of the car…who knows where’s you’ll stop)! Keep in mind that your body will be going forward with a ‘g’ force commensurate with your vehicle speed at the time of impact (object in motion tends to say in motion and all that) and the airbag is exploding at over 200mph…wonder who the winner is gonna be? If you’re going fast enough when you impact the other car/tree/object, your body will hit the airbag and stop but your organs will keep moving…right into the front of your body.
This is off topic, but perhaps you can answer a question I have about UK currency? What is a shilling? I’ve heard the phrase “Pounds, shillings and pence” in numerous British television shows and I’m only familiar with pounds and pence.
Your internal organs hitting a hard object (rib cage, steering wheel, etc.) This is the one that causes the damage. Unfortunately, if #1 occurs, so do #s 2 & 3.
I feel weird being in a car and NOT wearing my seat belt. It’s just automatic.
Herb Brooks, who coach the U.S. men’s hockey team in the Winter Olympics in 1980 (aka the Miracle on Ice), was killed when he was thrown from his car after falling asleep at the wheel. Once again, another case where, if he had been wearing his seat belt, he most likely would’ve survived.
The worst traffic accident I ever worked back when I was a cop involved a head-on collision, no seat belts or baby seats. Mom, dad, baby in one car. Dad died, mom lived. As she was being put in the ambulance, she came to and started screaming for her baby. No one could find the baby.
The kid (about six months old) had been ejected. She had hit a telephone pole by the road and was impaled about 20 feet off the ground on one ofthe climbing rungs.
I work in the insurance industry and my information was provided by an engineer and technician who work in the Vehicle Research Center of the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety).
I’m all ears and, in all sincerity, I will listen to what you have to say and follow up with my contacts at the IIHS to confirm.
Are you responding to me? It was Rick who wrote that you are 100% wrong, but without giving a single further word of explanation as to what was wrong with your post (other than to say all of it), and no information on what the right information would be instead. I was asking him to elaborate.
Yes, my apologies! I read your response and wanted to also ask him to explain how and why I am 100% wrong about airbags and seat belt pretensioners. I simply clicked reply under your post rather than his.
I’m not sure what Rick’s specific beef is, but reading your post I’m a little confused about what you think an airbag actually does. You seem to be implying that hitting the airbag is a bad thing and that the seatbelt and pretensioner will prevent it. That’s absolutely wrong. Hitting the airbag is what you WANT to do. The main goal of the pretensioner is to make sure you DO hit it.
It is true that if you’re not wearing your seatbelt, you’re more likely to receive minor injuries from the airbag like broken noses and chemical burns and such, but those minor injuries are way the heck better than what you’ll get if you don’t hit the airbag in a bad crash. Originally, the major benefit of airbags was that they would protect occupants even if they weren’t belted. They work better if you’re belted, but that’s because without the belt you’re at risk of missing the airbag, not that the airbag itself is going to grievously injure you or send you flying like a volleyball.
in Michigan, motorcyclists no long have to wear a helmet, where does that make sense with the seat belt law?
I can see making minors wear them because they are no judge to when they want to take their lives into jeopardy but adults, why? If we want to kill ourselves? I suppose the insurance companies appreciate it but hey just charge non seat belt users more and even if they claim they do, once they get in a severe accident they’re going to know there was none.
What is the percentage of motorcyclists crashing without “smashing their heads” in with or without the helmet?
Don’t know if this is true or not, but I’ve heard (mostly from bikers) that widespread helmet laws have actually increased the medical costs of motorcycle accidents, because more bikers survive with crippling injuries such as amputations or paralysis. Wish I had a cite to confirm or debunk that factoid.
