Crash and Safety Features

What actually happens in a collision? The first part of that answer is that there are two collisions. The first collision occurs when the vehicle runs into another object. The second collision is when the occupant(s) hit the inside of the car. Neither a seat belt nor an air bag can do anything about the first collision, but they can be a great help to you in the second collision. They can minimize the impact between you and the interior of the car. Safety belt use is more than a personal right. Injuries and fatalities resulting from motor vehicle accidents are reflected in the rising costs of auto and health insurance, and costs to employers in the form of lost days at work. The taxpayer also loses by having to support emergency medical response teams and social programs for the disabled. Excuses, excuses! 1. "Seat belts are too uncomfortable." Of course, in a car accident -- without your seat belt -- you would smash into the steering column, slam into the dashboard, or crash through the windshield. This too, can be very uncomfortable. 2. "Seat belts wrinkle my clothes." Sometimes. Sitting also wrinkles clothes. Wearing clothes wrinkles clothes. Flying through a windshield REALLY wrinkles clothes. 3. "Only nerds wear seat belts." Really? It turns out that -- without seat belts -- nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, "A" students and average students would all fly through the windshield at the same rate. 4. "I'm a good driver." Nice as that is, good drivers can get hit by bad drivers, drunk drivers, or other good drivers with mechanical failures. Very few people intend to have accidents. 5. "Seat belts restrict my freedom of movement." This is true. Without your seat belt, you have all the freedom in the world -- to crash into your windshield, to slam into your car's interior, or to be thrown from your car and slide along the pavement. Freedom is great. 6. "It's too embarrassing to ask friends to use their seat belts." In 1984, 46,000 people died in car accidents. That same year, not one person died of embarrassment. Safety in car design was recognized as being important even in the earliest cars. In recent years, however, it has become a fundamental subject in its own right. Active safety measures have been designed to reduce the likelihood of a car being involved in an accident in the first place, while passive safety measures assume that a collision is inevitable and then aim to reduce the severity of the injuries to the road users involved. Until the late 1800's the British had a 2 mph speed limit for cars. There was an excellent reason for this. It was also required, for safety's sake, that each car carry two passengers with a third person walking in front. The job of the third person was to walk in front of the car to warn everyone that it was coming!