NYT/AP: Report: 48 Million Refuse to Buckle Up Seat Belts

[DeepModem Mom]

Report: 48 Million Refuse to Buckle Up
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 15, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Seat belt use is reaching record levels, so just who are the holdouts who fail to buckle up? Often they are young men who live in rural areas and drive pickups, the government says.

About 48 million people do not regularly put on seat belts when they are on the road, a figure the government's highway safety agency hopes to lower with an annual public education campaign ahead of the summer driving season.

The ''Click It or Ticket'' campaign involves checkpoints, patrols and advertisements to help enforce seat belt laws. It runs from May 22 through June 4.

The latest report on seat belt use by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says men account for 65 percent of the more than 31,000 people killed each year in passenger vehicles....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Seat-Belt-Campaig...

[boobooday]

1. That's a lot of damn fools

When I was growing up, NOBODY used seat belts. Sometime within the first year after a car was purchased, they would disappear between the seats, never to be seen again.

Now, it would just freak me out to drive without my seatbelt. I refuse to put my foot on the accelerator until everyone in the car is buckled in. To ignore the seatbelt just seems like such a stupid reason to die.

[Demeter]

2. This Is A Self-Correcting Problem...

Darwinian evolution at its best. So what if it's Social Darwinism? That's the price of freedom and free will.

[Ilsa]

6. So true. Unfortunately, families lose a beloved member in the

process. And public workers have to bear the trauma of picking up their broken (and sometimes headless) bodies, etc. I have a family member who won't be told what to do.

[gratuitous]

12. Yeah, but some folks don't have the good taste to die immediately

Now, if there was some sort of program that would force the folks who don't want to buckle up to pay for their own medical care, or if we just offed them at the scene, this might be a little more workable.

I remember Derrick Thomas, the All-World defensive end for the Kansas City Chiefs. Riding in a car with two other persons, it slid off the icy highway on the way to the airport. One person died at the scene. He wasn't buckled in. Another person survived with minor injuries. She was buckled in. Thomas, the bozo, wasn't buckled in, but because he was a world class professional athlete, he lingered, paralyzed for a couple of months before finally succumbing to his injuries.

And yes, I'm still pissed at the senseless, needless waste.

[BR_Parkway]

3. We don't need a law to make it happen, that's nothing but an excuse

for them to pull us over and check other things - helps them in their arrest record statistics. I always wear my seatbelt because my Dad was a vol fireman and took each son to a pretty bloody wreck right before we came of age for a permit. It was a lesson learned, and I resent the gov't intrusion to think that they, once again, should decide what I do with my body.

[sweetheart]

32. yes agree

So what it saves lives, it is an invasive, uninvited search to rummage around
my person in my private spaces to prove whether i'm wearing a bloody strap.

Its all part of the new fascist conformist state and the police right to
be in your face 24x7 for every petty event in your private life.

What about the fresh-waxed-floor police to protect us from falling or to
ticket unmarked wax floors.

Where are the police who stopped all those children who can't swim from being
near water... where are those police...

What about hte masturbation police and the gay police, we need them to protect
us, what about the dog police and the cat police, oh dear, how will i live.

I need a policeman to help me with toilet paper on the loo as well,
just to make sure i use my proper alottment, no less, no more, just
so that my TP use does not affect the enviornment.

I need a policeman on the salt shaker on my table, as it is more likely
to kill my than my car.... a failed police state.

[stepnw1f]

4. Quick! Get the National Guard!!!!

We must stop drivers without seat belts. They will cost insurance companies more money, which will be paid eventually by the little guy anyways!

[Ilsa]

5. One stubborn old rancher here wouldn't buckle up and loved

speeding along his dirt roads on his ranch. He rolled his truck and died when he was thrown from the vehicle and broke his neck.

My sister fell out of her old truck on a turn one time. She wasn't buckled in and didn't even bother to make sure the door was closed properly. I love her, but her stubbornness will be the cause of her own death someday.

[NJ_Lib]

7. Same with motorcycles and helmets...

... Sure, you should have the right to ride your bike without a helmet but for Pete's sake, who would be so foolish...?

In Pa recently, they changed the law to let you decide if you want a helmet or not, which is just crazy... My ex used to wear his helmet but since this law changed, he doesn't bother and my daughter walks around in a perpetual state of fear...

Being reckless does not only effect YOU!!! I wish these people thought of their families...

[Robb]

9. ...Or the EMTs

...It takes a long time to hose up bucket-less brains.

[Mojorabbit]

8. I won't wear one

I have claustrophobia and believe me..
I would be more dangerous trying to wear one than not.

[AzDar]

10. What is particularly foolish about 'seatbelt laws' is the fact that you

can be pulled over and ticketed for not wearing a seatbelt, yet pickup trucks can haul around any number of passengers UNSECURED in the freaking TRUCK BED with no repercussion whatsoever!
I wouldn't think of driving without my seatbelt fastened (although I heartily rebelled against them as a teenager), but am firmly against these 'laws'. You cannot legislate common sense...

[Captain Hilts]

11. It's illegal to have people ride in truck bed in most states.

In some states, the truck bed law also covers dogs as well.

[NJ_Lib]

13. Oh, did you know most school buses have no seatbelts?

When I found this out a few years ago, that here in NJ only a very small fraction of the school buses are new and equipped with belts, (most are the old ones without), I had the biggest fight with the local school board... I made a big fuss and they said there was nothing they could do... I called the state Police too and asked them: "How could it be that I could be ticketed if my child in unbuckled in my car but school buses carry children by the thousands each day this way... The good Police officer said he has no answer for me...

What a country, everybody must wear their belts, except for the most important and vulnerable among us, OUR CHILDREN!!!

Goddamn backwards-ass country...

[theHandpuppet]

15. YES!! This is one thing I've NEVER understood!!

Why aren't parents DEMANDING that all school buses be fitted with seat belts??

[NJ_Lib]

17. Oh, I DEMANDED allright... They pretty much laughed at me...

... and told me if I'd like to, I can pick up the $20 million to replace all the buses in the county... I told them to raise my taxes by a hundred a year and this should cover it... They said that the residents would never go for it...

Oh, Ok.... Let's build countless businesses and properties here in the boonies but school buses with seatbelts?

Ahhhh, who the f needs them?

Gotta love the hypocricy... I should call a "Pro-Life" organization and ask about this... "Hey, since ya'll care so very much about our children, what do ya'll think about this"? ... "Um, hello?.... Hellllooooo?.... Dial tone...

[enlightenment]

21. But don't you know that kids are SAFER in school buses

when they're not wearing seat belts?

That's the argument they use where I live.

It is safer, presumably, for them to bounce around like little balls inside a metal box than to (potentially) hang suspended from a seatbelt when the bus tips over.

I HATED (and I don't use that word lightly) putting my kid on the bus when he was growing up; tried very hard to take him to school and pick him up until high school (when he put his foot down about being chauffeured by mom).

[Ediacara]

23. Buses generally don't have seatbelts

The backs of seats are padded, tall, and flexible enough that they generally can survive a crash. The reason that seat belts are intentionally left out (according to bus drivers) is that it takes 3 to 4x as long to evacuate a bus with seatbelts.

[Lautremont]

14. Are these the same people who won't signal when they change lanes?

[DeepModem Mom]

16. Probably! I posted that article, too. nt

[truthisfreedom]

18. candidates line up for coveted Darwin Awards...

[ecstatic]

19. My mom thinks a seatbelt might cause death /or to be trapped

in an emergency situation. I always remind her to buckle up though. (Ironically, I'M the one who got a ticket moments after leaving my subdivision for not putting my seatbelt on yet.)

[Solon]

24. Just tell her this...

Back in my High School, about 10 years ago, a High School Senior died in a car accident. This is exactly what happened, he was driving his Jeep, and it flipped over on a hill, he was thrown from it because he didn't wear a seat belt, and it rolled over onto him. He survived about 2 days in the hospital after that. If he was wearing a seat belt, the ROLL bars on that thing would have protected him while he was "trapped" in the Jeep.

[AzDar]

26. LOL! MY Mom, too. When they enacted the 'seat belt' law in Ohio,

she would actually PULL the seatbelt over her chest and hold it(when a passenger), rather than buckling it!
When she drove, she'd go commando everytime...we finally convinced her that she was setting a bad example for the grandkids, and she relented (or so she SAYS).

[ixion]

20. I'll tell ya what you can do with mandatory seat belt laws and

so-called "checkpoints" -- shove'em long and shove'em hard, IMO.

[Ediacara]

22. I had a roommate who refused, she thought the belt would slice her in half

I told her that any car accident that would cause you to be sliced in half by a seat belt would reduce you to a pink mist without the seat belt. She didn't believe me. No amount of statistics can disuade people convinced they're right when they're so clearly wrong.

[midnight armadillo]

35. Well, they CAN injure your sternum

However, any crash hard enough to crack my sternum would send me straight through the windshield without the seatbelt on, so I figure it's best to wear it

Seatbelts as a safety innovation are equal to the next 4 or 5 best safety innovations combined when it comes to saving lives and reducing injuries. The other major ones are the passenger safety cage, antilock brakes, airbags, and electronic stability control, if memory serves.

[Lindacooks]

37. Tell her about my dh.

Years ago, he was driving somebody else's truck (which had bald tires, which he didn't know about) in a rainstorm. He was wearing a seatbelt, his passenger was not. He applied the brakes, the truck skidded into oncoming traffic, and hit a station wagon head on. The other people weren't wearing seatbelts.

He walked away with a bruise where his seatbelt held him in. His passenger - broken arm, broken leg, head wounds. The people in the other car? Broken legs, severe head wounds, lots of blood and agony.

Seat belts save lives. Period.

[LostinVA]

42. My SO and her parents were in a horrific car accident last year

A"Dually" pickup going 85 miles an hour ran a light and slammed into them. Both cars were totaled.

Her Dad had three cracked ribs and a broken clavicle,; her Mom had some cuts from glass and some very bad bruises and a damaged nerve in her arm; my SO had a few little cuts and a banged up knee.

The bastard driving the truck died.

Guess which of the four didn't have one a seatbelt? And guess which three the cops and EMT said who have been dead if they hadn't all been wearing theirs?

The guy had a wife and three kids.

[noonwitch]

25. I never used them until they made it the law

Some time in the 80s, they made it law in Michigan. I started wearing them then. We never wore them as kids-my dad used to cut them out of his cars, because he was in an accident once in which he would have been killed (impaled by the steering wheel)if he hadn't been thrown from the car.

Maybe he had that mentality that the tight-rope walking family (their name currently is escaping me) had about nets-as using nets allegedly made them walk perfectly (although many of them have died and at least one was paralyzed in a fall), not having seat belts made my dad drive more safely? We were never in an accident, but, of course, the speed limit on the freeways in the 1970s was 55.

[Mithras61]

29. I think you're referring to the Flying Walendas... (n/t)

N/T

[LostinVA]

43. The old belts without shoulder straps weren't that much better than wearin

nothing. But today, with airbags and good belts? No excuse.

And, I can't imagine riding a motorcycle without wearing a helmet -- I wouldn't even dream of riding my bike without one.

[BiggJawn]

27. Talk about your "Stereotypes"...

My AARP card-carrying member ESSO HATES to wear her belt.

Me, on the other hand, buckle up in my little truck even for the 5-block drive to her house...

Go Figger...

We've had "Clicket or Ticket" here for a few years now.

[reprobate]

28. What do helmetless cyclists and beltless drivers have in common?

They both become known as organ donors. Don't believe that?

Then spend just one weekend night with a rescue crew. Nothing will change your opinion faster.

[dmallind]

30. Interesting question

I wear a seatbelt pretty much all the time. Moving a couple hundred yards or so maybe not, but in all "real" driving.

I do that even though the risks of needing a seatbelt are exceedingly low. Collectively we take many billions of car trips a year. Serious/fatal accidents number in the tens of thousands. I don't do so because of anecdotal evidence like seeing a bad wreck or knowing a cousin's brother's nephew's pal who died without a seatbelt. I don't consider such stories useful in making any decision. Who knows what would have happened with a seatbelt? Belted passengers do die too. Also (and this really is true) my own uncle would have been dead with a seatbelt, but just suffered some nasty scratches and a broken arm without one. He was thrown clear but the truck he hit shed its load onto his car, crushing the greenhouse completely. Do I take that as a reason NOT to wear seatbelts? Hell no - I look at aggregate data and I find that belted passengers are more likely to survive, even though the actual risk is very low.

So in essence I decdie to protect myself against an exceedingly unlikely event because I have a "just in case" approach to saving my own skin, even though a seat belt may not save me and may even in some cases endanger me.

Seems like a lot of people agree with that approach here.

So why is there an almost universal consensus against civilian firearms carry at DU - isn't that just protection against a very unlikely event where statistically speaking I am safer if I have that protection than not?

Absent a visceral dislike for an inanimate object, why should I take one "just in case" precaution but not the other?

Not wanting to thread hijack (honest!) but my standard answer to most people who are on my end of the political spectrum who often get upset when I say I carry a gun and ask me "why on earth do you feel the need to do that - are you looking to shoot people" is this exact case - "Why do you wear a seatbelt - are you looking to ram into another car?" Instead I view both as "just in case".

[Trajan]

33. Yes ... you hijacked this thread ....

and yes: You are comparing apples and oranges ....

Wearing a seat belt in your vehicle cannot ever be a threat against your neighbors, no matter HOW mad you get .....

You cannot shoot your neighbors with your seat belt ....

You cannot round up teenage burger flippers, herd them into a cooler, and kill each one, execution style, with your seat belt ...

You cannot rob a bank, take potshots at schoolchildren, kill innocent bystanders, 'correct' a drug deal gone bad, kill your philandering wife, or punish your divorcing spouse by shooting the children .... with your seat belt ...

Non sequitur ... If I ever saw one ....

[midnight armadillo]

36. There's a key difference here

So why is there an almost universal consensus against civilian firearms
carry at DU - isn't that just protection against a very unlikely event
where statistically speaking I am safer if I have that protection than not?


I am in a car every damn day of the week. I have yet in 31 years needed a firearm for any purpose. So, my seatbelt wearing is an intelligent choice in my personal safety. Owning a gun would greatly increase the risks to myself and my family of bing injured by a gun, with no apparent decrease in other risks since I live in a well-policed, low-crime area where help is minutes away. I have to say your argument isn't that strong here.

[reprobate]

44. While I wore a weapon for a goodly period of my life, I'm not in favor

of civilians carrying concealed. Mostly because far too many Americans - males in particular - will have the immediate reaction to go right to violence. I'd much rather see conflict solution taught in every grade, K-12. I think it would have more effect on violence. Do I worry about some knuckle dragger endangering my or my family's well being? Yeah, it's in the back of my mind, but like you said, it's an unlikely event. Certainly I could qualify for a carry permit in this state, but I've put it off from one year to the next.

There's another thing that makes me hesitate to carry. Have you ever killed a person with your weapon? Well, I haven't either, but I've known several LEOs who had to. To a person, they were effected so much that their lives were not the same. Two had to take early medical retirement,tho their only wounds were psychological.

I know myself well enough after all these decades that I know my 'superhero' is hiding just under the surface, and a weapon would just empower him to do stupid things. I will not place myself in a position to have that emotional anchor dragging on my soul for taking a life. Sure, there are some that certainly deserve it, but I'm definitely not the DECIDER.

[Shakespeare]

31. Well, that explains the Bush voters.

Stupidity abounds.

[shanti]

34. and they are idiots!

maybe i should invite them over to my house and see just what happens when you don't wear your seatbelt! would they like their forehead, face or worse rearranged?

this is one of my pet peeves, people who don't buckle up. (ps-my accident was way before seatbelt laws, 1974)

[endarkenment]

38. I have a friend who refused to use them

until he rolled his car over and got thrown all over the inside of the vehicle. Then he decided that they weren't such a bad idea.

[TheCowsCameHome]

39. That's OK with me as long as they're RWingers and Bushbots.

Otherwise, it ain't good.

[ikri]

40. 48 Million mobile organ donors!

Back on one of the days I actually paid attention in school I learned from my high school biology teacher that when the seat belt laws passed here in the UK the number of organ donors dropped by 90%.

Don't be critical of these 48 Million. Be thankful of the public service they're doing in donating their organs after they've flown through their wind screens at 70mph.

[High Plains]

41. I wasn't aware we had 48 million traffic fatalities.

Hmmm, maybe everybody who doesn't wear a seatbelt doesn't get killed.

Still, it is an excuse for the cops to pull us over.

[Ciggies and coffee]

45. The Insurance Industry wrote their annual checks....

To their toadies in the PR/Media club, I see.

[dionysus]

46. my personal experience with seat belts....

driving to the store at 2am to get cigs and beer...
right by the store is an onramp to an interstate, cop has someone pulled over...
oncoming (drunk) redneck fucker in huge F-350 truck is paying attention to the cop
head - on collision ensues, each of us going 40

i had a full car load of people.. all of whom wore the seat-belts
the crash was nothing, but if i hadn't been wearing that belt i would have been chowing on steering wheel and glass. My car was totalled. Anyone who doesn't wear the belt is inviting death.

on edit: the slap in the face was us sober people, in sight of the store, missed the beer selling deadline while my wreck was towed away. At least the perp was tossed into the squad car in cuffs...