Safety belt ...can you drive without?

_Kaiser_

Max_Damage wrote: »

Captain Slow!

Damnit! Shoulda seen that coming! Not really though.. I like to make "efficent progress" on the roads

E92

I wouldn't drive a yard without my seat belt on, and I always wear a seatbelt when provided on anything, except on the plane when they allow you to unfasten the belt. Even if I'm reversing out my gate, and I have to close it, on goes the belt. And I refuse to move my car if somebody doesn't wear their seatbelt.

Its plain wrong not to drive or be driven without a seatbelt.

Chiron

I too feel naked without my seatbelt on. I refuse to drive unless every body in the car has their seatbelt fastened.

On a side note, I remember seeing "Reeling in the years" not so long ago and it was the year seatbelts became compulsory. There were loads of people on complaining that being forced to wear a seatbelt was against their human rights!

colm_mcm

sure everything's against our human rights; having to pay to have our bins emptied, re-using plastic bags, getting used to caling Marathons "Snickers", using the Euro, not smoking in the pub - we adapt very quickly to be fair!

Stark

colm_mcm wrote: »

sure everything's against our human rights; having to pay to have our bins emptied, re-using plastic bags, getting used to caling Marathons "Snickers", using the Euro, not smoking in the pub - we adapt very quickly to be fair!

I don't think they had those "Marathon, the bar known internationally as Snickers" and "Snickers, the bar formerly known as Marathon" wrappers for long enough. It was a massive change to spring on us overnight. My poor old neighbour, bless her, she still gets confuddled when she goes to the shops to buy a chocolate bar. Lots of people like her around who still think in old chocolate.

skibum

Alun wrote: »

And as for passengers, front or back .. if they don't put theirs on, the car doesn't move, no discussion.

Same here, used to get funny looks from pasengers but anybody who knows me know to buckle up, no questions asked.

Having been in two "biggies" as a passenger where I would have been seriously injured if not killed without the seat belt, I always put a belt on. Recently got a spin in a corvette stingray, really beautiful old car that only had a lap belt, really enjoyed the ride but felt uncomfortable not having the 3 point belt...

salonfire

Why do people travelling on buses never wear seatsbelts?
I wonder would they travel in a car with no belt?

I always put it on when on the bus

Mitch Connor

louie wrote: »

Same here. I used to hate the seatbelt, then I got into the habbit of wearing it and now can not drive without.

same with myself. Even reversing the car out of the driveway and then back in (to let a car out) will require the seatbelt being put on.

When i was a kid i hated wearing my seatbelt, but now it is just a habbit, and it does feel weird being in a car without it. Even sitting in the back of a car, the first thing i will do is put the seat belt on. Again, when i was younger I would put my seatbelt on in the front, but didn't see the point in doing it when i was sitting in the back.

High&Low

salonfire wrote: »

Why do people travelling on buses never wear seatsbelts?
I wonder would they travel in a car with no belt?

I always put it on when on the bus

I never been on a bus that has had a seatbelt...

Stark

Intercity buses have seatbelts.

ianobrien

I am another for the "feel naked without it" club, and by the way, Seatbelts WILL hold you to the seats, even if the car is upside down! I've experienced it, and I'm not small!

I got a spin in a car that had no seatbelt around a farm and it felt so wrong!

ambro25

If it wasn't for the onboard "Bitching Betty", I wouldn't put it on half as often. I feel better driving without.

Blazer

ambro25 wrote: »

If it wasn't for the onboard "Bitching Betty", I wouldn't put it on half as often. I feel better driving without.

Me too..I'd always wear it for driving anywhere..but for christ's sake..having to move my car in the driveway requires the bloody thing on :mad:

alias no.9

I'm in the 'naked without it' category. I was a passenger in a car that rolled. I got out relatively unschathed because of the seat belt.

dudara

Key in the ignition, seatbelt on, turn on ignition. There's just no deviating from this routine on my part.

I won't move the car if a passenger doesn't put on a seatbelt.

My parents are from the old school and only tend to put on seatbelts when entering onto an N-road. Watch out for a middle aged women in a green merc who is swerving as she attempts to put on her seatbelt while doing 60 on the Ballyvourney side of Macroom in Cork - that would be my mother.

Wertz

Never without it, be it driver or passenger; I'll even wear it while stationary and waiting to pick someone up in the car. This is due to my mother's life being saved some years ago after she was rear-ended by some guy asleep at the wheel....her seatbelt and the new towbar were the only things that stopped her being thrown out onto the road (the towbar took an awful lot of the momentum out of the impact according to the insurance assesor; car was a write-off).

As for wearing them on buses? Was on a bus last month for the first time since they were taken in....I attempted to put on my belt, no, wouldn't fit, tried adjusting it, nope, tried another seat/belt combo....still nothing. I am by no means overweight, quite the opposite....if bus eireann's belts wouldn't circle my girth then they were a pointless addition to the fleet, because they rule out anyone with more than a 30" waistline...

ambro25

Wertz wrote:

Never without it, be it driver or passenger; I'll even wear it while stationary and waiting to pick someone up in the car. This is due to my mother's life being saved some years ago after she was rear-ended by some guy asleep at the wheel....

I hear you and statistically there's no doubt it saves manifold times more people than it kills. But I know about as many people who were killed (or not killed, as the case may be) because they were not wearing it, as people who were spared because of it. Horses for courses, from a personal POV.

Stark

How would a seatbelt kill someone in an accident?

Wertz

The only urban myths I've heard are where people have been belted in and could not free themselves from the car before it caught fire (after an accident obviously)
Then again I've heard of airbags killing and maiming people...

Stark

Wertz wrote: »

The only urban myths I've heard are where people have been belted in and could not free themselves from the car before it caught fire (after an accident obviously)

I snopes.com

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/seatbelt.asp

Wertz wrote:

Then again I've heard of airbags killing and maiming people...

Yeah I've heard of short people being seriously injured by airbags due to being positioned very close to the steering wheel when the airbag expands with explosive force. I think some modern cars have an option to disable the airbag for that reason.

Wertz

Some lovely stats on the bottom of that snopes piece....how come we can't keep detailed accident stats like North Dakota? I mean it's a state nearly 3 times the size of Ireland with only 700K people....if they can gather and collate accident statistics, why can't we?

Anan1

Wertz wrote: »

her seatbelt and the new towbar were the only things that stopped her being thrown out onto the road (the towbar took an awful lot of the momentum out of the impact according to the insurance assesor; car was a write-off)

Slightly OT, but the assessor was talking complete rubbish about the towbar.:)

Wertz

Alright but something took an awful lot of the momentum of the volvo doing 40mph and it wasn't my ma so I don't care. The car (fiat ritmo) was shortened by about 6 inches....the towbar hitch was buried in the fiat's bumper (and in the volvo's rad).
Right or wrong, every car she's bought since have had a towbar fitted. Can't hurt.

ambro25

Stark wrote: »

How would a seatbelt kill someone in an accident?

By keeping them in the car, wherein they would have been killed had they not been ejected.

Happened to my Dad, who would have been killed by -
(i) engine (V6 Renault), halfway into/onto the driver's seat
(ii) roof, down to lower half of seat's back rest
(iii) possibly gearbox/tranny, with pinions/metal bits protruding through the seat base
...had he not been ejected at +/- 75 mph through the sunroof (which wasn't open at the time btw).

The car (Renault 25 V6, big yoke) did 3 full somersaults end-to-end (not rolls) in freshly plowed field, lucky my Dad landed in mud (still did 3 weeks of IC all the same): there wasn't a spare bolt or nut to be gotten from the wreck at the scrapyard, whole car was bent in a V with all of the roof about level with headrests, engine more than halfway into interior, boot end about a couple of inches away from backseat, etc, etc.

A very good friend of mine was lost some years later in a motorway crash. Turns out she was trapped in her upside-down AX after losing control in bad weather, acc. to incident report belt was stuck fast after car rolled over and acc. to coroner she was alive after car rolled over. Emergency arrived too late to free her - after a Dutch 38 ton artic ploughed into the car. Not having belt might have saved her or made things worse - .guess we'll never know.

As an aside, I have myself been in an accident wherein the seat belt did not work (in a Citroën XM, so reasonably recent), and now have a (small but...) scar to remind myself.

All anecdotal of course, which is why I'm at pains to point out that me preferring not to have a seatbelt is my own choice and of course entirely contradicted by statistical data... I'd be as open-minded and level-headed as the rest of them, but where stuff like that's concerned, from experience like above and others close to home, I'm very much a supporter of the "when it's time, it's time" camp

E92

Volvoboy wrote: »

See i like Volvo's when they were just that a Volvo!! Not some sick Mutt!!

No Volvo has interseted me since the 900

So what you're saying is that you have no interest in any Volvo that was actually any good?:D

What about the 850? That was a Volvo Volvo to pardon the pun. And so were the S60,S80(Mk1),XC90,V70(not the current one of course).

Actually on the subject of Volvos, are the Ford Focus S40s/V50s anyway good on the old reliability thing? My gut instinct tells me that the petrol 4 cyls are fine cause they have Ford engines, the D5 and 5 pot petrols are grand cause they have Volvo engines, and the only ones that have me worried are the 4 pot diesels with their PSA diesels?

Eoin

Start a new volvo thread lads.

Back on topic:

ambro25 wrote: »

All anecdotal of course, which is why I'm at pains to point out that me preferring not to have a seatbelt is my own choice and of course entirely contradicted by statistical data... I'd be as open-minded and level-headed as the rest of them, but where stuff like that's concerned, from experience like above and others close to home, I'm very much a supporter of the "when it's time, it's time" camp

Will you wear a seatbelt if you are a passenger in someone else's car? I refuse to give anyone a lift without their belts on.

DublinWriter

fletch wrote: »

Yeh I just feel 'naked' without mine too. Often times even just moving the car in and off the drive-way I'd buckle up.

+1

But it's amazing how many in the good ol' US of A still do not wear it, stating that they feel like it's an infringement of their liberties. Me? I think it's just basic Darwinian principles in action.

Esel

I feel dressed while driving naked with my seat belt on. Doesn't feel right somehow! :eek:

Gwynston

Interesting that the majority of people feel unsafe without their seatbelt, at least when driving.

This begs the question why so there are many half-wit mothers driving their precious kids around in their SUVs who are comfortable in the knowledge that they're wearing their belt, but don't give a toos about the safety of the kids jumping about on the back seat.

In the event of a head-on crash the kids will either go through the front windscreen or into the back of mum's head. Darwinian theory in action again! :rolleyes:

ambro25

eoin_s wrote:

Will you wear a seatbelt if you are a passenger in someone else's car? I refuse to give anyone a lift without their belts on.

I will if I'm a passenger in someone else's car, mainly because I would hate for them to be pulled by cops because of me not wearing it.