Military aircraft mechanics are fond of asking a trick question; "What is the primary purpose of an ejection seat?" The answer: to provide a place for the pilot to sit. The secondary purpose, hopefully never used, is to provide a fast, safe means of escape from a crippled aircraft. While cars don't have ejection seats, the car's seat is, never the less, a very important piece of safety equipment. Most drivers tend to think of the car seat in terms of comfort and appearance while ignoring the fact that the seat is a critical piece of safety equipment in a crash.

The most common type of crash on America's roadways is the rear- end crash and the most common injuries drivers experience from that type of crash are whiplash and spinal injuries. The reason for this is simple. One of the laws of motion says "an object at rest wants to remain at rest." While sitting in a car seat, your body wants to remain at rest. If you are struck from behind by another vehicle, your body will want to remain at rest while the car is rapidly pushed out underneath it. If your seat isn't properly positioned, your body will snap back, followed by your head. This rapid snapping back of the spine and neck is what causes all the back injuries. Those of you who may have experienced this type of injury know that you don't really start to feel the muscles tense up and the associated pain until the next day. If it goes untreated, the trauma can cause long term and sometimes permanent injury.

The seats position and its ability to remain upright in a crash, is so important that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (the folks with the crash test dummies) actually test the seat separately from the car. They remove the seat from the car, put it on the track and simulate a rear end crash to see how well the dummy fares in a crash. You can see how these tests are conducted at: http://www.iihs.org/ratings/head_restraints/head_restraint_info.html. You can also look up the seat's ratings for your particular vehicle.

Too many people now days tend to place the reclining seat slightly back and drive in a slightly reclined position. While it may be relaxing, this is a very dangerous practice. The further back the seat, the greater distance your body will be stretched backwards in a crash. To provide the greatest protection, your seat should be in the full upright position with the headrest just barely touching the back of your head. In this position, your body will be protected by the seat and prevented from snapping back so violently in a rear-end collision.

The other advantage of placing the seat in a full upright position is to help keep you alert on long trips. Leaning the seat back may be more relaxing but it can be too relaxing, allowing you to become drowsy on long trips. To take full advantage of all the safety features in the vehicle, you should adjust the seat's position so that your body is a minimum of ten inches from the airbag. Your seat belt should be fastened with the lap belt low over your hips and the shoulder harness crossing the center of the chest and centered over the shoulder. Never drive with the shoulder harness behind you. If the shoulder harness doesn't fit properly, you can adjust the position where it attaches to the car's frame. If your car doesn’t have a shoulder harness adjustment mechanism, you can purchase a shoulder harness adjustment fitting for a very low price at your local auto parts store.

Labels: air bags, car seats, driver safey, driver training, seat belt, seat belt law, seat belt safety

Though most drivers and passengers understand the rationale for wearing safety belts, some feel wearing them should be a personal choice and they shouldn’t be ticketed for neglecting to do so. But the number of states with primary (meaning that the driver can be ticketed for a safety belt violation without the presence of any accompanying offense) seat belt laws is increasing.

In 2007, 49 states and the District of Columbia had seat belt laws in effect; only 26 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia specified primary enforcement. Several states have passed primary enforcement laws since then; for example, Florida's law will become effective June 30, 2009. The new law, called the Dori Slosberg and Katie Marchetti Safety Belt Law, will allow law enforcement to pull over unbuckled drivers and issue tickets for as much as $120, depending on the county.

Some drivers feel primary enforcement seat belt laws are an infringement on their personal freedom, but it's important to realize that the cost of motor vehicle crashes, which increase when injury and death rates increase due to lack of seat belt use, is passed on to taxpayers. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the economic cost of motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2000 was $230.6 billion - $580 for every person in the US.

Obviously, the failure to wear safety belts does not directly impact every aspect of this total cost, but it can and does impact medical costs ($17 billion) and loss of productivity ($107 billion). The increase in injuries and deaths when seat belts aren't worn also increases costs for taxpayers in the form of an increased need for emergency and hospital personnel and disability and social security payments to the injured and deceased and to their dependents.

According to the NHTSA, research has found that lap/shoulder seat belts, when used, reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent. For light-truck occupants, seat belts reduce the risk of fatal injury by 60 percent and moderate-to-critical injury by 65 percent.

Ejection from the vehicle is one of the most injurious events that can happen to a person in a crash. In fatal crashes in 2007, 76 percent of passenger vehicle occupants who were totally ejected from the vehicle were killed. Seat belts are effective in preventing total ejections: only 1 percent of the occupants reported to have been using restraints were totally ejected, compared with 31 percent of the unrestrained occupants.

From 1975 through 2007, the NHTSA estimates that seat belts saved 241,789 passenger vehicle occupants age 5 and older, including 15,147 lives saved in 2007. If all passenger vehicle occupants over age four wore seat belts, 20,171 lives (that is, an additional 5,024) could have been saved in 2007.

Labels: driver education, seat belt law, seat belt safety