Do You Wear Seat Belts When Driving Or Riding?

[arwalden]

For those who DO buckle-up... is it for safety reasons, or are you only doing it because you don't want to get a ticket?

For me, fastening my seat belt is completely automatic. The other day I had to back the car down the driveway so that I could have room to get the lawn mower out of the garage (10 whole feet of driving) and I was buckled-up.

Who are these 48 million who refuse to buckle-up? Are they the same folks who refuse to wear helmets on motorcycles (or just the same mentality?)

=====================================================

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-Campaign.html

[Neoma]

1. It's one of my better habits.

[trof]

2. Got in the habit in airplanes.

Before we had seatbelts in cars.
Now it's second nature.
Feel naked without it.

[arwalden]

3. "Feel naked without it."

Yep... I know what you mean. That's the perfect way to describe it.

[terrya]

4. I ALWAYS buckle up.

When I rent a car, I ALWAYS buckle up. It's against the law here in Illinois to not buckle your seat belts. And it's a good law. You don't know if those airbags are going to work.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. My dear arwalden!

I always wear mine....I just feel naked without it!

AND I always lock my doors......don't want anyone trying to carjack me, and I don't want to be thrown clear of my car in the event of an accident...

I want to LIVE! :woohoo:

[In_The_Wind]

6. My truck goes ding-ding-ding if I don't wear my seatbelt!

I felt totally nekkid on my trike without it!

[norml]

7. Only when driving the highways do I ever put on a seat belt

or if the lights go on behind me.

[Blue-Jay]

8. Mostly, but sometimes I do forget.

Got a $25 ticket last year, and since then I forget a lot less often.

[johnnie]

9. I always wear it

And I mention it to passengers if they don't buckle up. I started to do it when I saw a horrendous accident one day while in Tenn. and it was a terrible seeing the bloody arm reaching up from under the crumpled SUV.

If I just have to move a few feet I feel strange when I don't buckle it.

[seemunkee]

10. I have two friends who would not be here without them

Bad accident and they both had bruises across their stomach and diagonally across their chests. They walked away otherwise unhurt. I always buckle up.

[Gormy Cuss]

15. I had a friend who isn't here because of driving without one.

The accident occurred at 35 miles an hour and the air bag alone couldn't prevent her body from being slammed back so hard that her neck snapped.

I also have friends like yours who developed chest bruises after accidents that turned their cars into scrap. They walked away with only minor injuries.

[Spacemom]

11. The car doesn't move unless everyone is buckled

It's such a simple thing to do that could have a tremendous impact on your life.

[Phillycat]

12. Many years ago...

My friend Wil called me up out of the blue. I hadn't talked to him in over a year. He said, "I had a dream last night that you died in a car accident because you weren't wearing your seat belt." I can honestly say from that day forward (and it's been about a decade since then) that I never drive or ride in a car without my seatbelt. And I don't let others ride in my car without one, either.

[Love Bug]

13. I always wear mine

I suspect the 48 million who don't are the ones who "know a guy who works with a guy who's friend had an accident and would have burnt up in his car if he had been wearing a seat belt."

[NewWaveChick1981]

14. My mother got me into the habit when I was a kid and

no one thought it was a big deal. However, since I was about six years old, I have not ridden in a car where I haven't worn seabelts. :) The seatbelt saved my life in a car accident in 1991, so you'd better believe I still wear them!

[mduffy31]

16. I have to

I have a newer car and if you don't there is an urgent annoying beep until you do.

[RebelOne]

17. Always, but there was an incident

involving my brother-in-law which saved his life because he wasn't wearing a seat belt. He was riding with someone else and they went around a curve too fast and crashed into a tree. The car bounced off the tree and plunged into a canal. My brother-in-law and the driver were thrown out of the car. If he had been wearing a seat belt he would have gone down with the car. Of course, this is a rare occurrence and he was just lucky.

[Left_Winger]

18. Yes, but I learned the hard way... (Newtonian physics and such)

You know... objects in motion have the tendency to remain in motion...

One accident, no seat belt, and we were "only going 15 mph...." Well, my face smashed into the dashboard. I broke my nose and bit my lower lip all the way through. Now I have a slight speech impediment (especially if I'm talking fast) because of the nerve damage in my lip.

[Haole Girl]

19. A friend of mine and volunteer Fire Fighter said it best:

"I never pulled a dead body out of a seat belt."

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. Always

I was in an accident in 1999, sitting in the back passenger seat on the opposite side from where the car was T-boned.

I ended up with hideous seatbelt bruises that ached miserably for nearly two months. (I learned EXACTLY what we use our abdominal muscles for: getting up from a chair, lying down, sitting up in bed. I could get out of bed only by rolling onto my side, and easing up sideways.)

However, the doctor told me that severity of the bruising was an indication that without a seat belt, I would have been thrown around in the car and probably suffered head injuries.

About 9 years before that, I was rear-ended on the freeway. (The cars in front of me had slowed down; the one behind me was going full speed.) Without a seatbelt, I would have been impaled on the steering wheel as the car was sent shooting across the median and the opposite two lanes of traffic (nothing coming at that moment, fortunately, or I wouldn't be typing this), and onto the shoulder on the opposite side.

You'd better believe I always wear my seatbelt.

[ghostsofgiants]

21. Fuck seatbelts.

Car safety was Ralph Nader's first step in single-handedly hadning the 2000, 2004 and 2008 (just you wait) elections to the BFEE!!1!1 (Or something)

[Hell Hath No Fury]

22. Always...

When I was 20 I was staying with my sister back in Virginia. I was driving and she was in the front seat with her 7 year old son between us. I was buckled in (hardcore habit, they were not.

Driving through a parking lot a car came out of nowhere from behind a store and I was forced to hit my brakes HARD to keep us from hitting it. My sister and I both threw our arms across my nephews chest but he went right over them and shattered the windshield with his head.

Luckily, the kid had a hard head and was basically unhurt.

It was a nice reminder on why I wear my belt, and a wake-up call to make sure anyone who rides with me is buckled in regardless of what their state's laws says.

[tjwmason]

23. Always - mostly from habit.

Which I don't mean in a negative sense - just that ever since I was a little boy my parents would insist, and so it's second-nature and I don't even think about it.

I suppose it's a mixture of safety and obeying the law (which I think is different from not wanting to get a fine), but mostly the former.

[Alleycat]

24. Always

I got in the habit and I just feel safer. I did it before it became a law.

[jrandom421]

25. And here's the reasons

1. Have had to identify far too many relatives who didn't.
2. Been to too many memorial services for friends who didn't
3. My wife, the retired paramedic, would severely maim me before buckling me in herself.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

26. Everybody, please read this...

A friend of mine nearly died because she was in an accident and her seatbelt wasn't fastened properly...she had tucked the shoulder strap under her arm. Her face was horribly messed up (she's really a lovely young woman) and she suffered broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. Her injuries wouldn't have been nearly as bad if she'd worn the shoulder strap over her shoulder.

I used to tuck it under my arm like that all the time. Never again.

My friend recovered, fortunately; and the plastic surgeon did a beautiful job...You can't tell she was injured.

Be safe, my friends! :loveya:

[swimboy]

27. Without fail

my entire life

In fact, it feels funny not to be wearing one on my bicycle! :shrug:

[maveric]

28. Always.

For safety reasons and the fact that in CA they pull you over if they dont see an shoulder strap.
$400.00 fine down here.

[SeattleGirl]

29. Always -- since even before it became law

When my daughter was about a year and a half old (she's 26 now), we were going to go somewhere one day, and after I buckled her in, I went to start the car, and she said, "Seat, mommy," meaning I had to fasten my seatbelt too! I've worn a seatbelt ever since.

[realisticphish]

30. Always

and I've pissed off my sister's friends before, cause I refuse to drive them anywhere until they've buckled up.

[Oeditpus Rex]

31. Yup

It'd take a conscious effort not to, since it's so engrained. It was a requirement in driver's ed, 34 years ago — even in the simulators.

I'd feel utterly weird without one — like I'd flop around on the seat.

[ForrestGump]

32. Yep....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=5156012#5156141

[TexasLady]

33. after a bad wreck at age six

and my mother almost dying, dad went from who cares, to who wants an ass whoopin! in no time after that. its an ingrained habit, and i believe its saved my life several times.

[NJ Democrats]

34. Always

Unless I'm on a bus or a subway... (Most don't even have seatbelts)

[philosophie_en_rose]

35. I always wear one. It's just habit.

I've never been in a car without a seat belt. And lack of seat belts is one of my only complaints about public transportation. (especially schoolbusses).

[redqueen]

36. Always Always Always

Not only do I do it for myself, but I have two kids watching me. I want them to think safety too... so I set the example, even when riding.

[tigereye]

37. always

my dad even put some in his cars in the 60s. He was ahead of his time.