tech2

without the seatbelt ….you will hit the airbag at the wrong time...which could injure you. keeping it on ensures...the pretentioners keep you in your seat so that when you hit the airbag...its already deflating.

getting t-boned (with no side curtain) may be the only time you don't want a belt on.

mountainmanjoe

or going off a cliff

MiragePilot

Back in the '80s in Cape Town, South Africa, there was a "famous" accident where a driver of a Mercedes Benz sedan "drove of a cliff" on Chapmans Peak Drive and survived. Mercedes capitalized on that story and made a car commercial out of it.....basically saying the only reason he survived "is because he was wearing a seat belt, AND driving a Mercedes Benz".
https://www.wheels24.co.za/News/merc...class-20180530

If I went off a cliff, I'd definitely want to have a seat belt on..... ;-)

Peter

mountainmanjoe

tech2

oh great...now I don't know if I should wear my seatbelt or not.

dberladyn

CF Tech was the only one that made sense to me. Oh yeah, and the going off a Cliff comment, surely it'll save me then. I am just going to make the problem worse here by saying that my cousin was the Captain of an Edmonton Fire Department. He was also decorated with awards for such. We talked about this over twenty years ago. He swore up and down that he is never wearing his seatbelt after what he has seen and he will tell it right to a cops face. No god damn way.. he would just get all excited over it. He said after everything he had seen, he would rather DIE than live maimed and all messed up. Given that it was twenty plus years ago, cars were different then as CF Tech points out.

Members of the Royal Family do not wear theirs. I imagine President Donald Trump doesn't either. Ok, so there's reasons for that.

Me, it's just habit mostly. I either get myself in the routine of wearing it, or get myself in the routine of not wearing it. I don't know how or why it started, I just don't. The odd time I buckle up and after I do so I am asking myself what just happened? Then I just wear it because it is on. I have noticed in the past that I actually have different driving habits depending on whether I am wearing it or not. Almost a different personality. The Air Bag thing will make me think far more than a cop will. Right now, I'd probably go tell a cop to @#$% himself and his ticket. I'd probably tell him to go talk to either HM the Queen or God, get out of my face.

Just the other day/week I went through a check and it was weird, I just happened to put it on that day by mere fate. I was ready to bark at that cop. He had that attitude in his face and when you combine that with my attitude, oh @#$% - not a good mix. There might a semi-valid reason I do not wear it, I do not know it to type it right now. All I know is that right perceive it as my choice. Not the governments.

I have been in very serious accidents and not wearing it. Honestly, somebody must have saved me. In the one worst accident we spun around hydroplaning right into oncoming traffic. A 100+km/hr crash. I hit the roof and came back down so hard that I bent and twisted the seat. On the positive side, I was ready to get out in an instant but door was jammed and the fuel was spilling out, I could smell it. My buddy wearing his seatbelt... he was in daze staring out the windshield. I had to almost smack him, get OUT of the car.

dberladyn

That was my fault by the way. Dumb kid. I think it might have been my first car. I just had to take it out for a drive. I bought a certain unsaid persons friend. It literally had bald tires. If we were speeding, we were barely speeding. The city didn't maintain the main drag back then. It used to flood with water. I had tons of room. Some guy, who I assume was drunk, suddenly began turning into the liquor store and he was one of those drivers that took forever to make his right hand turn into a driveway. There almost no excuse for it, other than being drunk. I thought I was under control. I just touched the brakes and that was it. Completely out of my hands. We were doing a 180 right into oncoming (angry) rush hour traffic. I lie we were probably 10 over the speed limit, at worse 20 but I don't think so. The cop, who I kind of knew did that math for me. You add their speed, you add your speed and you get the speed of the collision. I never felt like such crap in my life. Not only was I sore, I was responsible. Now, decades later I have started to realise so and so sold me buddy's car and he should have known better. He cannot excuse himself either, but he did and he laughed at me.

I was laughing a moment ago thinking of this, because a few years later, this same friend in the collision was driving to same location as me. For fun, as friends do, I pulled beside him. I didn't really do anything, but for fun I taunted about racing. I looked at him and pulled ahead, just to taunt him and laugh. Next I know he did it to me except... I saw what was coming, he didn't. Some car slowing to turn in his lane. He bumped up his dad's truck. His dad was cool about it, but he made me feel twice the piece of crap. We bought a new front end and repainted the whole truck, my friend and I. Somehow I earned some respect back for doing that. It was kind of two Son project with the Old Man watching over learning at the same as being impressed by a couple of boys. Wasn't the best paint job, but it was the bonding that mattered. We since agreed to never drive down that same spot again together. Both accidents took place at the exact same location.

tech2

how do the g vans rate in crash protection?

mountainmanjoe

Mine doesn't even have a safety rating on NHTSA. Just Rollover risk 23%, 3/5 stars.

MiragePilot

"Members of the Royal Family do not wear theirs".

Princess Diana would probably be alive today if she had been wearing her seatbelt. The only person who was wearing a seatbelt in that car, was the only person who survived that wreck.