A seat belt: a lifesaving device
A seat belt is a restraining device that is installed in vehicles to prevent and reduce force of an injury in the event of an accident. For anyone travelling or driving using any means of transport, wearing seatbelts is an important safety measure.
The importance of wearing seat belts
Numerous accidents happen in our day-to-day lives and the proper use of seat belts saves many lives. Despite being a law, wearing a seat belt should be an intuitive action that should be done immediately upon getting on board. During an accident, anyone not wearing a belt can become a projectile since when one is unbuckled, they can easily be ejected through the either the front, side or rear windows. This may eventually cause severe injury or death depending on the size of impact.
Restraint and protection
In addition, besides accidents, we should wear seat belts because they offer restraint when the driver breaks suddenly. Without a seat belt, hitting our heads on the windshield or steering wheel may injure us. When a person does not wear a seat belt, he or she is most likely to get in trouble for breaking the law. Throughout the world, one of the major traffic rules is wearing a seat belt, failure of which results in expensive fines and dire consequences.
The ripple effect
Many states conduct intensified enforcement of their seat belt laws with all states except New Hampshire having mandatory safety belts. An example is New York where policy has the authority stop vehicles exclusively for belt law inspection or violation. It is more important to realize that in this case, we shouldn’t wear seatbelts simply because it is the law or a way of avoiding fines. Failure to wear a seat belt does not affect one person alone. Our actions have a ripple effect. Failing to a wear a seat belt can throw a passenger of the windshield and in doing so cause a distraction to other drivers using the same road.
Common excuses debunked
Those who die leave behind families simply because they couldn’t be responsible for their own safety. People often use excuses not to wear seatbelts such as ‘it is uncomfortable’ or ‘ I am only going a short distance.’ Others simply believe that they are good drivers and therefore do not need to wear seatbelts. Well, the truth of the matter is that being a being driver does not stop accidents from occurring in situations such as poor road conditions or bad weather. Seatbelts have been established to save more than fifty percent of lives during accidents. At the same time, it has been established that eighty percent of traffic fatalities often take place within a radius of twenty-five miles from people’s homes. As such the excuse that we are just going across the corner should be the last. We all know that simply wearing a seat belt can save many lives. The effect is that we end up with life threatening injuries that render most people handicapped and in severe cases, loss of life, which leaves behind distraught families.
