Three teens dead, two more critically injured.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A few days ago, in Monticello New York, a car went out of control and went airborn. It struck a telephone pole and snapped it. All five teenagers in the car were not wearing seat belts. Three died immediately, one was beheaded by the force of the ejection. One is in stable condition, the driver in intensive care. ( He held onto the steering wheel and didn’t get ejected. They were aged 14-17. The Story

They were not drinking. The driver wasn’t on a cel phone. The roads were clean and dry. He just misjudged on a very bad hill/sharp turn and was going too fast.

My wife taught all but one of these kids when they were in elementary school. The shock of loss is huge, and I can not possibly imagine the shock to the families and friends who were close to them all.

No seat belts. Damn damn damn. They might have died anyway due to the impact into the pole. Then again, they might not.

Take a minute and say a prayer if you pray. If you don’t, take a minute and remember what gift it is to be a nudge with your kids about their seat belts.

:frowning:

Cartooniverse

2

Cartooniverse, this is a very tragic story. But it does (hopefully) teach a lesson to other teenagers out there.

As far back as I can remember, even as a very little girl, my parents were insane about seatbelts. When I started driving, that was one strict rule I had in my car - you had to wear your seatbelt. One day while driving my friends to school, I noticed one of my friends not wearing his seatbelt - I told him to put it on and if I ever caught him not wearing it again, I would stop right there and make him walk. The next day I guess he wanted to test me, so he didn’t wear it again. As soon as I noticed, I pulled over and told him to get out. I made him walk the rest of the way to school. As harsh as it seems, he never tried to take that seatbelt off again. I am a huge stickler for seatbelts and I plan on teaching my children the same way my parents taught me - it doesn’t matter if you are going one block or 100 miles - you always wear your seatbelt!

Please tell your wife I am so sorry for her loss. These kids will be in my thoughts and prayers.

3

Someone once told me that if your passenger(s) in the car are not wearing seatbelts, the car insurance is not liable for any hospital or injury payments.

I have no idea if that is true, and I really don’t care if it is true - but I use that story whenever someone gets in my car and doesn’t put on a seatbelt. It always works.

Sorry about those kids…seems like it happens in every community every few years - teens think they will live forever and wearing seatbelts isn’t cool.

4

Mom’s rule became my rule. The key does not turn until the seatbelts are clicked in place. Simple.

5

I held a dying woman in my arms that wasn’t wearing her seatbelt. Two months later, I again was right behind an a much worse accident, when a Semi hit a Civic (back when they were tiny). I was prepared to witness much worse. I was amazed to watch as the kid undid his seatbelt, crawled out his window, and began bitching that his skis were broken.

Pretty much sold me right there.

The habit is so ingrained, that I kept on buckling up at the drive-in movie the other night.

6

15 February 2002: 25-year-old San Diego outfielder Mike Darr and his friend Duane Johnson were killed when Darr rolled his SUV. Neither were wearing seat belts. Ben Howard, who was riding in the back seat, was wearing a seat belt and survived.

7

That is sad.
I’ve always been a big seat belt advocate.
I have actually convinced people that my truck has a safety feature where it won’t start unless all occupied seats had their belts fastened. Don’t know why anyone would believe it of an '86 Blazer, but whatever works, right?
If they want to argue about it, I then go for, “Well, I can get a ticket for you not buckling up”.
When that hasn’t worked, it’s then, “My truck, my rules or you can get to your destination via your chevro-legs”.

I couldn’t live with the guilt if someone got hurt in my truck because I didn’t insist that they buckle up. :frowning:

I hope you and your wife are doing ok.

8

What a sad story.

I have never understood why people don’t wear seat belts. I mean, what is the downside to putting it on? I don’t know about you, but I can’t even feel I’m wearing one. Maybe it’s more the culture over here, but nobody I know would even think of setting off without buckling up. It takes two seconds. People are strange. :frowning:

9

Never used them until 22 years ago; in fact when I was little many cars didn’t even have “safety belts”.

Then I saw a film called “Room to Survive” that explained how cars are designed to crumple around a person-sized space with a seat belt in it. The point of the belt is to keep you inside that space. Intrigued, I toured a junkyard and found that generally even the most crumpled cars still had that space in it.

About then a co-worker had a bad accident, really balled up his car at high speed - and it did crush his feet, as the crumpling didn’t quite maintain the entire space - but it didn’t crush most of him, and didn’t even crush the feet so badly that he couldn’t walk within a year or so, if a little gingerly.

I was sold.

Besides, it’s a big time saver. During the early stages of a severe accident, there’s too much else to do to be farting around looking for the buckle…

10

When I took driver’s ed in high school - circa 1971 - we were required to buckle up. That’s when I got into the habit. It was a few years later before I started buckling as a passenger, but now I always belt myself in, and I make my passengers do the same. There are too many idiots on the road not to protect myself however I can.

Such a sad, preventable story, 'Toons - very sad…

11

If I did not wear a seatbelt, I would not be here typing this. The bruises were impressive, but vastly better than the alternative.

Wear a seatbelt.

12

In 1992 my then-girlfirend, now-wife was struck head-on by a drunk driver. She was in a little Toyota Tercell and the driver had a BMW. The seat-belt unquestionably saved her life. So we are both seat-belt zelots as well as members of M.A.D.D.

13

At least one person has managed to do it though.

14

The sad thing about all this is that it’s going to happen again and again. You can show all the pictures and videos of bloody, destroyed bodies and some people (not just teens) just aren’t going to believe it can happen to them.

15

Absolutely, everyone should wear their seatbelts. I was convinced of this when I crashed at just about 25 mph… (my shoulder was not the same for about a year and a half…)

The point that everyone is missing is that if someone under 18 is driving… there should be NO other minors in the car! Period! If a teen wants to drive, let him or her do it with a parent in the passenger seat. No exceptions! CHILDREN, together, are not thinking clearly.

[Rant]ESPECIALLY in a big GD SUV TANK! The sense of invinciblity in one of those monsters is pure DECEPTION on the part of Detroit (or Tokyo/Munich/WTF else!) They should be banned! [/end rant]

16

My older brother and his wife are alive today because they wore seatbelts. Way back in the pre-cellphone era, David careened off the road trying to avoid a deer, one snowy night, and the car ended up out of sight of the road. He was banged up a bit, but able to get out of the car and make his way back to the road to flag down help for Nancy, who had a bad back injury. Had they been unbuckled, they would have died, either of injuries outright, or from exposure before they were found.

I go absolutely berserk when anyone trots out that “I’d be safer if I were thrown clear” excuse. THROWN CLEAR??? Just what the heck do they imagine will happen? That they’ll soar away from the cartwheeling mass of steel and magically float unharmed to nice soft ground? :rolleyes:

17

I haven’t personally known too many people who have been in car accidents, but those who wore seatbelts lived, and those who didn’t survive were not wearing seatbelts.

One friend wasn’t belted in and when her mom, who had used her seatbelt, rolled the car, her drunken self survived and her little girl was thrown from the car and crushed. A couple of students of mine were coming home and the driver fell asleep. Everyone but Joanna was wearing a seatbelt, but she wanted to sleep lying down. Everyone except Joanna survived.

Most recently an aquaintance of mine drove off the side of a freakin’ mountain, probably because she fell asleep (she doesn’t remember before, during or right after). Her car fell at least fifty feet and she landed engine down onto a pile of boulders. Except for a bit of memory loss, broken collarbone, and bad bruises, she’s fine. So yes, wear your seatbelt, always.

18

This is horrible.

And it makes me wish once again that parents would THINK from time to time. Just because you can afford for your kid to get his/her driver’s license (and buy them a car) doesn’t mean you should. How many teenagers are going to have to get killed in stupid car crashes before parents realize that no, refusing to let your kid drive isn’t neglect.

19

Putting on a seatbelt is such a habit for me that, I’ve actually buckled up when I’ve gone out to the car just to get something. (Something which is easier to get if I actually get in and sit down, that is.)

I do have one story to relate where a guy likely avoided serious injuries or death because he was not buckled in. This guy was driving his 4x4 truck early in the morning one day. There had been showers during the night, and the roads were nice and wet. He hydroplaned, jumped a ditch and ended up flipping the truck end over end repeatedly in a field.

Now, like me, this guy made it a habit of putting his seatbelt on. But, for some reason, he hadn’t done so this time around. When the truck started flipping through the air, he basically laid himself out across the seats, from the driver’s side to the passenger’s side. (I’m not sure if he had grabbed the passenger’s side door handle. He may have.)

When the truck came to a stop - upside down - he crawled out and, once he got his bearings, quickly ran away from the truck when he saw what he thought was smoke coming from it. It turned out just to be steam, since it was raining, but distancing yourself from a potential fire/explosion-hazard is always good.

When they turned the truck over, they saw that the driver’s side roof had been crushed down right to top of hood. If he had been wearing a seatbelt without a shoulder strap, he could have probably laid out across the seats like he had. But with the shoulder strap, he would likely have suffered severe head and/or neck injuries, or worse.

Now, I’m definitely not saying someone should rationalize not wearing a seatbelt due to the possibility of a scenario like I just related. There’s always the good possibility of being thrown from a vehicle and then being crushed by the vehicle as it rolls. Now that I think about it, the guy in my story may not have been thrown from the truck for the simple fact that he’s a very large man, and couldn’t easily get out the window, much less be thrown out the window.

(The truck was a write-off. The frame had actually been bent, making any other repairs moot. However, the guy found a new frame, and rebuilt the entire truck essentially by himself. It was quite impressive.)

Anyhoo…

20

Cartooniverse, I will say a prayer for the kids. That is terrible sad. We had a story here about a month ago in which 3 young people were involved in a head on accident. They were ALL drinking. 3 died and 1 lived. That’s right you heard the numbers correctly. The girl in the back made it. The driver was male and he didn’t. His passenger to his right was his fiance, who was 8 months pregnant and would have delivered a baby girl this month, didn’t make it. They tried to save the baby, but was unable to. Very sad. Had they had seatbelts on, it might have made a difference. :frowning: