When he was 19, my son lived only because he stayed home to study for a test rather than go out with his roommate and another friend on a Saturday night to celebrate the roommate's 20th birthday. He asked if they were planning to be home before midnight. They said no, so he opted out, because he wanted to study and also to get some sleep, since he had a big test coming up on Monday..
The other 2 boys went drinking in Kansas City and came home around 3:30 a.m. They had an open container of beer in the car when they pulled into the apartment complex's parking lot, so when a cop flashed his lights at them, the 18-year-old driver, who was afraid of getting another MIP citation, took off. His speeds reached 120mph, according to my son's roommate, who was the passenger. He begged the driver to slow down, but the driver, who was always trying to be Mr. Tough Guy, called him an insulting name and said if he was so scared he could just put on his seat belt. The 20-year-old had just gotten his belt secured when the car crested a very steep hill and went airborne. It knocked over a sign, flew a ways further, and then wrapped around a tree. The driver, who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, died on impact--he suffered a broken neck. The 20-year-old survived, though he needed quite a lot of stitches.
The backseat of the car, right where my son would have been sitting if he had gone with them, was crumpled like a wadded up piece of paper. There is no way he could have survived that crash, even if he had been wearing his seatbelt.
Thank goodness he was so focused on his schoolwork at that time in his life. If he had not been so studious, he would surely have gone with them, since it was a Saturday night, and he surely would have died.
My daughter, when she was 19, was coming home from college for Easter weekend. She suffered whiplash and innumerable small cuts from broken glass when the car she was riding in had to veer into a guard rail to avoid a head-on collision with a van driven by an elderly man who was so busy looking at his map that he didn't notice that the 4-lane road had turned into a 2-lane road. She wasn't hurt any worse, though, because she was belted in. The driver of the car she was in was also wearing her seat belt, so although she was hurt worse than my daughter was, since she had the steering wheel to deal with, she also survived and, after some months of physical therapy, ended up being okay. Unfortunately, an 18-year-old student from the same college they attended was killed, because she was hit head-on by that van. She didn't see it in time to veer into the guard rail, so even her seat belt couldn't save her.
Similarly, my kids' half-brother and his friend both survived a freakish accident only because they had on their seat belts. The friend, who was driving, was messing with his car CD player, so he didn't realize the light had turned red. He actually ended up driving right into and then squooshing partway underneath a truck that had pulled into the intersection on the green light. Since both of the boys in the car were belted in, they both survived without severe injuries, though they were hurt some.
A fiery crash like the one in the OP will kill everyone, seat belts or not, just as the head-on collision killed the 18-year-old in the car behind the one my daughter was in, even though that girl had on her seat belt. But my daughter and her friend, my son's roommate, and my kids' half-brother and his friend all went through serious crashes without being killed or crippled, saved for no other reason than that they were wearing seat belts at the time.
My son, like the boy in the OP, would not have been saved by a seat belt. He was saved by the fact that he was not in the car at all--in my son's case, only because he didn't want to miss too much study time or sleep on Saturday night when he had a major test coming up on Monday. I still get a bit freaked out when I consider how easily he could have been killed that night!
I bet that the parents of the boy in the OP article will have moments of intense fear when the think of how easily they could have lost him. I had such moments for years after my son avoided avoid being in the accident that killed his friend.
ON EDIT: My son's friend who died was a show-off like the driver in the OP--and he had been drinking. If my son had been in that car, he would be dead. Like the driver in the OP, my son's friend who was driving was bound to get into that sort of accident some day.
Of course, cops should not be chasing someone at 120mph on residential streets in a city just because they are suspicious that a kid driving into an apartment complex parking lot at 3:30 a.m. might have been drinking without being 21! At least that boy's death forced our police department to revise its policy on high speed chases within the city limits.
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