It’s automatic for me to belt up.
Before seatbelts were compulsory I had an accident where another driver failed to give way turning across the direction I was travelling. He plowed his ute trhrough the driver’s side of my car, tipped it up on two wheels but luckily it hit a street sign and didn’t roll. The driver’s door was crushed over the driver’s seat and although it went through my side, leaving me full of bits of paint and glass, I ended up in the passenger’s lap and was not killed.
After this I was a bit dubious about wearing a seatbelt, after all the police and ambulance guys told me I would have been dead already if I had been wearing one that night. I have had enough experience since to know that the odds are hugely in favour of wearing seatbelts and I always wear one. I am also a big fan of side impact airbags.
Mom beat it into her children’s heads that you always wear a seatbelt in the car. This was in the late 80s, when there were such things as infant seats but not the booster seats that seem to be required these days. Of course, this was also when the back seats only had lap belts and Mom would use one of those shoulder-to-lap converters in case she had to carry four kids at once when carpooling. She also beat it into our heads that you don’t take off your belt until the engine has stopped running, a habit I still have. (I got spanked good once for taking my belt off on the way home. Never did that again.)
So, yeah, I still wear it. It really struck home when I was wearing it in a low-speed collision in my old Volvo and realized that if I hadn’t been wearing my seat belt my face would’ve hit the steering wheel hard (no airbags in a car that old.) In fact, one of the many reasons I hate driving or riding in an old '89 Mercury Topaz is because they have those stupid automatic shoulder belts, which make it a pain to get in and don’t feel nearly as secure as something bolted into the side of the car.
Not to mention the way they drive over there! And the roadbarriers! Dogs! Cats! Pedestrians! Oof!
My mother broke her neck and her back in a car accident in the '50’s–no seat belt.
That’s not why I wear mine. We were drilled in driver’s ed about it, but we were also educated–somehow it stuck with me. I have always felt safer in one.
My kids get frightened if I start backing out of the driveway and they are not yet buckled.
I once had to drive a friend’s two year old twins somewhere (long story). One of them, then both of them, unbuckled their boosters while I was driving. Teehee–they thought this was so funny.
I pulled over, stopped and read them the riot act. No “they’re little, so be gentle” stuff that day from me. I think it was the first time they had ever been forcefully talked to. Their eyes got huge, but they stayed buckled.
My MIL refuses to wear a seatbelt–she thinks it infringes on her personal liberty. :rolleyes: She is 90 pounds and about 4’10"–small enough to be a missile in a min-van. I refuse to drive her unless she straps it on. We don’t go anywhere together–Yay!
I absolutley agree with the higher “non-user” fee. If you are stupid enough to not wear a helmet on a motorcycle or not buckle up–I don’t want to pay for the scraping of you off our highways.
I regularly wore a seatbelt long before I was required. I got my first car in 1973 and started then (it had a separate shoulder belt, but I only bothered with that for long trips).
It only had a little to do with fear of a crash: I felt more comfortable when I wasn’t sliding on the seat.
I haven’t read the thread, but I’m posting anyway.
My first car was a hand-me-down 1966 MGB roadster. It didn’t have seatbelts. Soon I had a pair of old '77 MGBs. I discovered that seat belts were very useful when cornering, as they prevented me from sliding in the seat. So I wore seat belts because they were good for maneuvering.
I was in a head-on collision right after high school. I was in a Toyota pick-up that had a bench seat. The seat belts in this 1974 vehicle were rather clunky by today’s standards, and they were wont to slide behind the seat/seat back where they would gt very dirty. This is how I destroyed my other knee, after destroying my right one in a skiing adventure exactly a year before. (And I broke my right femur at the knee in the crash as well.)
So yes, I would wear seat belts even if there was no law requiring me to.
And I’d wear a helmet on the motorcycle even if they were not required. I have done since I started riding at the age of five.
I wore seatbelts long before the recent trend toward compulsory use, and would never do otherwise. I’ve never been in an accident of sufficient severity that they were really tested, but that doesn’t matter. They provide protection in just about every type of accident except, perhaps, a major driver’s-side impact, so why not?
Well, actually I sometimes leave them off driving in the parking lot of my apartment complex, for that little extra frisson of danger. I wear 'em everywhere else, though.
In '84 I took a vacation to see some family in Montana. My uncle was a bit suprised I wore seatabelts all the time even though they weren’t required in Montana. I told him that working on an aircraft carrier flight deck had given me a good sense of my own mortaility and that being in a motorcycle accident helped that along as well.
I later totalled that same car, a '78 VW Rabbit. Short trip, just a few miles, Sunday morning with virtually no traffic on a wide boulevard. A man in a small pickup packed with heavy books decided to make a left turn onto the boulevard in front of me. The cops estimate I hit the truck at about 45mph. Destroyed my car. I I hadn’t been wearing my seatbelts I would have been very severely injured. The lesson learned there is the wreck never happens where and when you expect it will.
Some people don’t get the same lesson. I dated an ICU nurse who had severely injured her knee in an accident yet still refused to wear seatbelts.
When I was in L.A. I heard that most crashes occur within a mile from home. One of the reasons I moved.
I should have added this.
My wife’s business partner and very good friend refused to wear seatbelts because they are uncomfortable. Two months ago she was on vacation with her husband and she took over driving so he could sleep. He woke to find the van going off the road and remembers yelling at her to not overcorrect. She overcorrected, the van rolled. She was ejected and crushed by the van. He had his belts on and had virtually no injuries.
Had a lady die in my arms. She wouldn’t have if she was wearing a seat belt.
I even absentmindedly put it on at drive-in movies. I just don’t feel comfortable without it on.
It’s second nature that I have it on. Instead of feeling claustrophobic with it on, I don’t feel ready to drive unless I’m “strapped in”.
Also, Like Johnny LA mentioned, it makes me more secure in the seat and less likely to slide or shift around, thus helping me to stay in control of the car.
My first car was an '80 Camaro. I used to leave my seatbelt off if I was just running to the store. The first time I did it in my second car, a '75 Maverick (with a vinyl bench seat,) I nearly slid all the way across to the passenger side when I turned the corner. Needless to say, I got in the habit of always wearing my seatbelt after that.
Peace - DESK
It’s the first thing I do when I get in my car.
As for why: I’ve been in a couple of minor accidents as a passenger, and even that was painful enough. I’d rather not find out how much worst it would have been without a seat belt.
Both of my kids were belted in starting with the trip home from the hospital. (When my son was born, car seats were so unusual that the nurse was shocked that my wife was not going to hold our baby. Boy did that change in the 5 years between our kids. 
)
Anyway each of our kids got to the unbuckle the belt stage. When my son did it, I just pulled over to the side of the road and parked. After about a minute my asked me why. I told him I was waiting for him to buckle up. He did and we continued. 
When my daughter got to about the same age, the same thing happened. I did the same thing and got the same response.
It may have helped that on both trips, we were going somewhere that the kids wanted to go. So YMMV
Went through a windshield back in '72, don’t care to repeat that!
My girlfriend’s gran is from rural Ireland, and hates wearing a seatbelt (partly because she finds it hard to reach round to do the buckle up).
We’ve had a few battles about it - I flat-out refuse to drive if she’s not wearing it, she can invoke all the saints she likes… no belt means we ain’t moving.
When I was a stupid teenager, I was the front seat passenger in my friend’s car when he rear-ended someone at a traffic light going 40 mph. I wasn’t wearing a seat belt, but had my seat reclined nearly horizontal. If my seat were more upright, I could’ve gone through the windshield. Instead, my body slid into the foot well and my face impacted on the dash, breaking my nose. Since then, I have always been very paranoid about proper seatbelt use by myself and other passengers in any vehicles I’ve traveled in.
My wife would rather not wear one, though. She’s quite busty, and the strap going across her chest always seems to settle into an uncomfortable position, no matter how much she adjusts it. I’d offer to hold her boobs out of the way, but that’s a distraction that would probably increase the likelihood of a wreck
My Aunt died from a car accident back in 1980 because she wasn’t wearing her seat belt. She hit the steering wheel. She made it to the hospital and was expected to be okay when a blood clot broke loose and travelled to her heart. I wish they would’ve invented air bags sooner.
I always wear my seatbelt and raised my son to always wear his too.