Is it safer to wear seatbelts, or not?

[Guyfang]

After reading this thread, and indeed its good we can agree to disagree, I felt like taking most of my clothes off and having my wife take pictures of me, to post here. A few of my scars are rather impressive. But on second thought, figured no one wants to see an old, slightly overweight fool like me standing in my underwear.

On Nov. 4, 1974, I not only went out the front window of a car, but went back through the same window, when we came to a rather abrupt stop, in a ditch. I know what my arm bone looks like now. I also know how much blood you can lose and still function. Cars back then were not required to have seat belts, and my buddy didn't want to spend extra money putting in something like belts. Beer was a much better investment.

Had there been a seat belt in the car, I would not have had a scratch. Instead, I spent months in bandages, getting stitches removed for weeks, being bathed by several very nice lady's and depend on very good friends to help me use the toilet. The laceration on my neck came within millimeters of cutting the main artery. Glass continued to come out, or be removed from my body for a good number of years. You can guess how I feel about belts.

Over the years, like Doghead, I have lost more then a few friends and working colleges. I have helped investigate several roll overs in military vehicles. Never once have I seen a death due to wearing a belt.

 

[FloridaAKM]

My truck didn't have seatbelts in it when I got it. I added a four point harness I got from here & use it when on public roads. The fine for no seatbelt is rough, the death penalty for not using it is not acceptable.

 

[Floridianson]

Yes I wear my seat belt in my truck glad I did here. Also I wear my seat belt in my MV's and any equipment I am running.

 

[MTVR]

This seatbelt thing is a lot like people who refuse to wear proper safety gear on a motorcycle- a lot of the ones that refuse wear it lose their lives, and so they aren't around to admit that they should have worn it.

 

[98G]

This seatbelt thing is a lot like people who refuse to wear proper safety gear on a motorcycle- a lot of the ones that refuse wear it lose their lives, and so they aren't around to admit that they should have worn it.

Evolution in Action....

 

[Robo McDuff]

Hit a concrete bridge part once in 1985, with 50 mph, something like an off-center frontal accident, on the driver side. Thought I could stretch out the hood and continue until I saw the front driver side. Front wheel was more or less folded against the cabin. I did not had anything apart from a scratch on my eye caused by my glasses, which were not connected with a seat belt, were thrown through the car. Thanks to VOLVO and seat belts.

Safety: like airplanes are a lot safer than cars, with seatbelts is almost always safer than without, but sometimes you are out of luck. If you are thrown out of a roll-over car changes are you get killed by that or the car rolls on top of you. Realizing quick enough that a dive to the floor is your only change is like hitting the jackpot.

Insurance: not wearing them mostly is a violation, so your insurance is invalid.

Normally, veteran cars on our side have to follow the rules of the year of manufacturing. The one exception is seatbelts: you HAVE to have them. period..

 

[frank8003]

Ten Foot Pole comes to mind ..............................

 

[Robo McDuff]

Technical Manual (TM) MWO 9-2320-200-35-1

Modifying Working Order effective date 1 October 1988 and completion date is 30 November 1992. Modification of 2 1/2-Ton and 5-Ton vehicles.

1. Purpose.

The purpose of this modification is to provide occupant restraint system (Seat Belts) to minimize occupant injuries during vehicle accidents

.

My M51A2 got the seat belts while in the POMS depot in the Netherlands, in 1991.

 

[MTVR]

I'm pretty stoked to have three 3-point inertia-reel seatbelts in my MTVR- one for me, one for my wife, and one for the dog, who has a vehicle harness...

 

[waayfast]

A co-workers son-in -law once told him "I don't wear no seatbelt, if I get in a wreck I'll just put it on then" ---- seriously!

I was about the first log truck driver in Central Idaho to wear a seat belt. Old school opinion was (is?) " if you slide off the haul road and lose the truck and load down off the mountainside, you want to bail out and that seatbelt is just in the way."

HHMMMMM? Got to thinking about just how lucky you would have to be, to get out, hit the ground and manage to avoid the drive tires on the truck, trailer tires and 54,000 pounds of logs sliding, tumbling down the mountain with you. I don't think I'm quite that fast on MY feet (butt). I will take my chances strapped IN the cab, thank you.

Buddy of mine blew the right steer tire on his old manual steering Peterbuilt Log truck going down the highway at 60+. Could NOT keep it on the road. He was big and strong but told me "6 men could not have held that wheel!" Went off through the barrow pit and came to a sudden stop into a small embankment.
Logs did NOT stop. Luckily (in this case) he was not wearing seatbelt and got bounced around and flung into the passenger seat area as the load smeared off the driver's side of the cab. I remember he was a VERY religious individual, apparently it works!

My 1957 M35 is stock with no seatbelts. Still have not decided whether to install or not.
I wear a seat belt ALWAYS in my daily drivers and am looking at installing a seatbelt in my 1943 Farmall H Snowplow tractor!

 

[M813rc]

Everyone has an opinion, so vat der hey, I'll throw mine in the ring....
my opinion is based on 30 years as a cop in a major city, many of those as a Vehicular Homicide detective and collision reconstructionist.

In all the many hundreds of collisions I have investigated, I never saw even one where someone died because they wore a seatbelt (ie, would have survived had they been unbelted). I've heard the stories (though none from my department colleagues) but I've never seen it.

I have seen many many where the reverse was true - had they been belted in, they could have told us their side of the story afterwards.

So, me? I wear a seatbelt in all my vehicles (that are equipped), even the soft-top 5-tons and deuce. The percentage of collisions with big trucks where they don't roll over is a lot higher than the percentage where they do.
I also wear my seatbelt in my tractor on the farm (it has a roll cage).
My Unimog had no seatbelts when I got it, I added them.
Of course, there are always exceptions - the Mule obviously has no seatbelts, nor do my motorcycles.

Cheers

 

[MTVR]

Everyone has an opinion, so vat der hey, I'll throw mine in the ring....
my opinion is based on 30 years as a cop in a major city, many of those as a Vehicular Homicide detective and collision reconstructionist.

In all the many hundreds of collisions I have investigated, I never saw even one where someone died because they wore a seatbelt (ie, would have survived had they been unbelted). I've heard the stories (though none from my department colleagues) but I've never seen it.

I have seen many many where the reverse was true - had they been belted in, they could have told us their side of the story afterwards.

So, me? I wear a seatbelt in all my vehicles (that are equipped), even the soft-top 5-tons and deuce. The percentage of collisions with big trucks where they don't roll over is a lot higher than the percentage where they do.
I also wear my seatbelt in my tractor on the farm.
Of course, there are always exceptions - the Mule obviously has no seatbelts, nor do my motorcycles.

Cheers

Is there an echo in here?

 

[Swamp Donkey]

I'm one of the few that stands on both sides of this. In my civilian vehicles I always wear a seat belt. In my M923 I will not.

Civilian vehicles are much different than MVs when it comes to cab design and center of gravity. The passenger compartment of civilian vehicles is designed to absorb impacts, prevent intrusion and generally remain intact during an accident. The roof and pillars are designed to support the weight of the vehicle in a rollover. The seat belt is part of a system, which also includes the air bags, seat belt retractors and various other items. You also have soft interior trim, collapsible steering columns, crumple zones and various other designs all with the goal of absorbing impact before it gets to the occupants.

My M923 has a hard top. The majority of the M939 trucks came with soft tops. Does not matter either way. There are no actual pillars or cab reinforcements. None of the saftey features I listed above are present. It's all just sheetmetal. If the truck rolls, the cab will fail almost instantly under the weight of a 29k truck. Due to the high center of gravity, a rollover is highly likely no matter the type of accident or how it started. The windshield is near vertical and a very short distance from your face. With only a lap belt, and no shoulder belt, part of you is going to hit or go through the windshield if you hit something, whether buckled or not. There is a valid reason the military designed the ROPS cabs for the M939A2 trucks. They were trying to increase survability in the common event of a rollover.

I follow the same rule with my M923 that is standard practice for heavy equipment. If the equipment has ROPS, then a seat belt must be worn. If the equipment has no ROPS, then a seat belt should not be worn. The roof over my head in my M923 does not have ROPS. It could only loosely be described as FOPS...and I mean loosely. I'll take my chances on the outside rather than the inside. Nobody can predict the type of accident they are going to be in. We can only prepare the best that we can for the possibilities that might happen and the forces excerpted upon us. I'll take my chances bailing out before I rely on the little lap belt to save me.

As far as the lap belt, this was an MWO in my truck. It didn't originally come with one. I'm not legally required to wear it since it was not OEM equipment to the vehicle. Just saying that wearing a seat belt is not mandatory for me, so that aspect really has no bearing on my decision.

I say I stand on both sides because I worked Fire/Rescue for 18 years. I served my time picking up body parts, pulling people from mangled metal, bringing people back to life and helplessly watching when life decided to slip away. I agree, that in civilian vehicles, it makes sense to wear a seatbelt. I also agree that most deaths in vehicles are due to a lack of seat belt use. Seat belts are only a small part of a larger safety system in civilian vehicles to increase survivability in accidents though. You won't find me wearing one in my M923 for the reasons I stated above. My choice shouldn't be the basis for someone else to make their own decision and my statements are only based on the vehicle I own.

 

[Robo McDuff]

Does a MWO applied to all trucks of that type makes it as of that moment, legally at least, an OEM issue? I would say that it is something similar to a factory recall for private cars.

 

[M37M35]

I will share that I am a retired cop, and I've been to countless collisions. My younger brother was an ALS (Advanced Life Support) paramedic, who also has been to countless collisions.

Neither one of us has ever seen someone die while properly wearing their seatbelt. Every single traffic fatality we've ever seen, was committing a seatbelt violation at the time of their death.

THIS!!!!
I'm a firefighter and have worked my share of wrecks. My observations are the same!!

 

[Robo McDuff]

First, MTVR and your brother and al other LEOs and first line support people here, certainly in this times: . Forget about the words in the smiley, just see the bow: thanks to all of you for the very hard and difficult work you do under emotionally circumstances.


In Europe, we also still have a lot of vehicle dead, but since everybody is wearing seatbelts, these are mostly total vehicle crashes (not counting drunk idiots without belts). Thanks to all deities and other protective forces, never been close to one.

I think virtually everybody agrees that seat belts in private cars are a must, period. Why not add a pole to the thread asking simply yes/no to wearing safety belts in MV trucks?

I assume that the more modern new lines of medium and heavy trucks have the integrated structural strength to go through a roll-over unharmed and all of them have obligatory seat belts?

 

[Jbulach]

A lot of interesting arguments.

I don’t think I would feel right having my family members in my truck, if I was in the “will not wear a seatbelt in the MV” camp.

How do you all handle this?

 

[clinto]

This debate is absurd.

Alright, the debate is that in a rollover incident, you're better off being flung out of the vehicle than being crushed.

Ok.

What about the fact that in all other traffic accidents, you're better off?

And none of us know what percentage of MV accidents end in a rollover?

So you're going to bet against your life in ALL the other accidents by not wearing a belt in the hope that the accident results in a rollover and maybe the lack of belt usage saves you?

This is a bad use of data.


I don't know what the actual statistics are, but the odds of you being in a traffic accident in your MV and it ending in a rollover AND you surviving because you weren't wearing a belt are insanely low in comparison to the odds that you're in a less violent accident and benefit from wearing a seatbelt.

I'm trying to say that in the pursuit of saving yourself in a rollover via not wearing a belt, you're much more likely to kill yourself by not wearing a belt and being involved in a less major accident.

I can't think of a good analogy here. Not wearing a belt all the time because of the rollover fatality risk is like taking up cigarettes because one guy inadvertently saved his life once by having a cigarette and the cigarette smoke blinded a bank robber and instead of being shot, the robber missed and this gave time for the security guard to take him down.

Yes, smoking saved his life, but the statistical probability of this happening, or happening again, were so absurd that the lung cancer chance outweighed this unlikely occurrence by a factor of eleventy brazillion to one.

 

[Elijah95]

I'm one of the few that stands on both sides of this. In my civilian vehicles I always wear a seat belt. In my M923 I will not.

Civilian vehicles are much different than MVs when it comes to cab design and center of gravity. The passenger compartment of civilian vehicles is designed to absorb impacts, prevent intrusion and generally remain intact during an accident. The roof and pillars are designed to support the weight of the vehicle in a rollover. The seat belt is part of a system, which also includes the air bags, seat belt retractors and various other items. You also have soft interior trim, collapsible steering columns, crumple zones and various other designs all with the goal of absorbing impact before it gets to the occupants.

My M923 has a hard top. The majority of the M939 trucks came with soft tops. Does not matter either way. There are no actual pillars or cab reinforcements. None of the saftey features I listed above are present. It's all just sheetmetal. If the truck rolls, the cab will fail almost instantly under the weight of a 29k truck. Due to the high center of gravity, a rollover is highly likely no matter the type of accident or how it started. The windshield is near vertical and a very short distance from your face. With only a lap belt, and no shoulder belt, part of you is going to hit or go through the windshield if you hit something, whether buckled or not. There is a valid reason the military designed the ROPS cabs for the M939A2 trucks. They were trying to increase survability in the common event of a rollover.

I follow the same rule with my M923 that is standard practice for heavy equipment. If the equipment has ROPS, then a seat belt must be worn. If the equipment has no ROPS, then a seat belt should not be worn. The roof over my head in my M923 does not have ROPS. It could only loosely be described as FOPS...and I mean loosely. I'll take my chances on the outside rather than the inside. Nobody can predict the type of accident they are going to be in. We can only prepare the best that we can for the possibilities that might happen and the forces excerpted upon us. I'll take my chances bailing out before I rely on the little lap belt to save me.

As far as the lap belt, this was an MWO in my truck. It didn't originally come with one. I'm not legally required to wear it since it was not OEM equipment to the vehicle. Just saying that wearing a seat belt is not mandatory for me, so that aspect really has no bearing on my decision.

I say I stand on both sides because I worked Fire/Rescue for 18 years. I served my time picking up body parts, pulling people from mangled metal, bringing people back to life and helplessly watching when life decided to slip away. I agree, that in civilian vehicles, it makes sense to wear a seatbelt. I also agree that most deaths in vehicles are due to a lack of seat belt use. Seat belts are only a small part of a larger safety system in civilian vehicles to increase survivability in accidents though. You won't find me wearing one in my M923 for the reasons I stated above. My choice shouldn't be the basis for someone else to make their own decision and my statements are only based on the vehicle I own.

Well thought and well said


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[M813rc]

A lot of interesting arguments.

I don’t think I would feel right having my family members in my truck, if I was in the “will not wear a seatbelt in the MV” camp.

How do you all handle this?

My personal rule in my vehicles is all riders wear a seatbelt while on the road. No belt - no ride.

The only exception is during parades, when people can ride unsecured in the backs of trucks. But no riders in the back once the speed goes above that of a leisurely stroll. At the end of the parade, the ride is over.

Cheers