Prosecution for not wearing seatbelt

[mbanani]

Dear All,

 

Just to put it on records,

I was not wearing a seatbelt, and was driving, until I reached a junction where I spotted a Police officer on motorbike, as I turned the corner I decided to wear the seatbelt, and a few minutes later the police officer caught-up with me, gave me a ticket to pay the £100 penalty.

Naturally, as a human nature I did not want to pay the fine, and requested a court hearing, and the courts dismissed the prosecution case, as although I was spotted not wearing a seatbelt, but when the officer actually stopped me I was wearing the seat belt, so no offence was committed.

 

Overzealous, and meaningless prosecution, and waste of tax payers money.

[reallymadwoman]

I beg to disagree. You got off on a technicality and should be grateful.

 

Many moons ago I worked in the motor insurance claims industry and the devastation caused by people not wearing seat belts was huge. If you want to risk your neck whilst breaking the law it's up to you, but don't be surprised if you don't get away with it if you're caught again, and I hope to God you don't hit anything and pay the price for the rest of your life.

[Conniff]

I disagree as well. An offence, (a dangerous offence) was committed, you were lucky.

There's nothing clever about driving without a seat belt.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Conniff

[Clear33]

when i was a child, i never wore a seat belt.

they then brought the new law in.

 

my mother, bless her fought tooth and nail with my dad, that i should not have to wear a seatbelt lol

 

that her hand would protect me if we were in an accident.

 

times have changed. fortunately my dad won and seatbelt sanity prevailed. Fortunately we were never in an accident.

[green_and_mean]

Dear All,

 

Just to put it on records,

I was not wearing a seatbelt, and was driving,

 

Overzealous, and meaningless prosecution, and waste of tax payers money.

 

 

 

[citizenkain]

yeah,that's it,dont wear a seatbelt and never mind if ya have an accident,whos it gonna hurt?,oh,its gonna hurt you,best wear a seatbelt the cops must be fed up scraping the dumplings off the ground!

[fletch70]

Maybe he was being over zealous or maybe he was going to give you a ticking off but you said something to wind him up

 

Overall though it is a crime . Should a child abuser get off because no one saw them actually abuse the child, a rapist because no one saw them rape. Not wearing a seat belt doesn't just put you at risk it puts others at risk as well.

 

My only concern is that justice should be fair and even.

[ericsbrother]

Now, to throw a fly into the ointment air bags are much better than seatbelts at preventing or reducing injury to occupants of vehicles and the seatbelt laws are now outdated. seatbelts cause several tyoes of injury such as broken legs and pelvises due to "submarining" and internal organ damge caused by the belt restraining the skeleton but the internal organs still having enough momentum to bash into the ribcage. As Vehicle design changes these things should be looked at again but until they are I will continue to wear my seatbelt knowing that there is no arguable defence for not douing so, even though i have better safety features built into my cars.

[2ltr16valve]

Now, to throw a fly into the ointment air bags are much better than seatbelts at preventing or reducing injury to occupants of vehicles and the seatbelt laws are now outdated. seatbelts cause several tyoes of injury such as broken legs and pelvises due to "submarining" and internal organ damge caused by the belt restraining the skeleton but the internal organs still having enough momentum to bash into the ribcage. As Vehicle design changes these things should be looked at again but until they are I will continue to wear my seatbelt knowing that there is no arguable defence for not douing so, even though i have better safety features built into my cars.

 

All in all. Wrong !!

 

Airbags are designed to work in conjunction with seat-belts. Most if not all cars will not deploy the airbags if the seatbelt is not fastened.

The reason being, forward motion Collision. Your body continues forward motion .... Forward and up due to the position and legs contacting the pedals/bulkhead. Airbag deploys = broken neck when your slammed into the roof/screen of the vehicle.

I have a nursing/medical background btw.

 

Yea seatbelts can cause injury by injuries from the way they hold you in. But are far more likely to prevent more injury coming into contact with the vehicle interior as described above.

Organs would carry on moving and suffer similar injury such as spleen rupture, aortic dissection or fatal spinal injury with out a seatbelt on.

[Conniff]

Give us the figures of those seriously injured or killed without seat-belts and those with and if the ones with are higher than the ones without, I'll tick your star.

[letsgetitsorted]

having seen a child go through a windscreen because of not wearing a seatbelt, tells me, the belt is there not only for my safety but for the safety of others..you where very lucky you got off on a technicality..other people who do not wear seatbelts are still suffering years after the accident they had.

[fletch70]

It's not just about the person's life though is it. The cost of treatment, the ruined lives, the dangers to others

[ericsbrother]

Ok, in the US, where seatbelts are not compulsory, the percentage of those killed in RTA's who were wearing a seatbelt was 56.4% and those who werent was 43.6% of the total deaths. Seatbelt wearing averages 84% so the raw figues suggest risk of death with seatbelt is about 1/3rd of that without seatbelt (no separate figures for air bags as CDC dont have them as they are keen on making seat belts compusory). There are a lot of difference in age group and type of collision, for example young people have the lowest rate of wearing seatbelts but the highest risk of death in drink-driving and the over 70's seem to wipe out everyone they hit because they are worst at driving the wrong way down the carriageway but they die wearing their seat belt. The motor industry is well aware of the US citizen's rights to do what they want and sue when they do something stupid hence the airbags design to be effective without a seat belt. Chose US figures because of quantity of data and also because there is a large enough comparator population to make it meaningful.

 

My observations on injury typical of seatbelt wearing come from when I trained as an ambulance paramedic and went on courses here and abroad in extrication techniques. This was before airbags were common so I cannot compare the injuries I mentioned withthose sustained when only airbag deployed by my own experience.

I will still wear my seat belt and not just because the law says so but because I think that I will lessen the effects of most impacts on myself by doing so. I wouldnt jump out of a plane without a reserve chute unless there was no choice.

[fletch70]

Ericsbrother I think your calculation is wrong

 

Wearing seatbelt =56.4% fatality

Not wearing seatbelt = 43.6%

 

In which case that statistic shows it is safer NOT to wear a seatbelt

 

I do not however like statistics as they can easily be manipulated and there is no comparison of speed of impact, urban , motorway, rural driving, night v day, wet v dry the list goes on

 

On top of that the laws vary from state to state http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/seatbelt_laws.html

[Migster]

Ericsbrother I think your calculation is wrong

 

Wearing seatbelt =56.4% fatality

Not wearing seatbelt = 43.6%

 

In which case that statistic shows it is safer NOT to wear a seatbelt

I think you've misunderstood the stats (which to be fair I did also the first time I read the post). The overall split of road deaths is that 56% were wearing a seat belt and 44% were not - so on a simple level more people die whist wearing a seatbelt. However we're also told that 84% of drivers wear a seatbelt, so presumably the remaining 16% don't. So we have:

 

Wearing seatbelt = 84% of drivers accounting for 56% of deaths

Not wearing seatbelt = 16% of drivers accounting for 44% of deaths

 

So clearly, wearing a seatbelt greatly reduces the likelihood of dying in a car crash

[BazzaS]

Ericsbrother I think your calculation is wrong

 

Wearing seatbelt =56.4% fatality

Not wearing seatbelt = 43.6%

 

In which case that statistic shows it is safer NOT to wear a seatbelt

 

I do not however like statistics as they can easily be manipulated and there is no comparison of speed of impact, urban , motorway, rural driving, night v day, wet v dry the list goes on

 

On top of that the laws vary from state to state http://www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/seatbelt_laws.html

 

 

Do not pass statistics 101, do not collect £200. Your analysis is flawed.

 

56.4% fatality for seatbelts, but from 84% of drivers.

43.6% fatality for no seatbelt, but from 16% of drivers.

 

So, looking at RISK, rather than % fatality:

Say we take 1000 fatalities. 564 wearing seatbelts, 436 not.

 

At the start of the journey, for every 84 people wearing seatbelts, 16 weren’t.

 

564/84 is 6.71, so for every 564 people who died wearing seat belts, 16x6.71 or 107 set out on their journey not wearing seat belts.

 

So, if the risk of death was the same wearing a seatbelt or not, the expected number of non-seatbelt deaths should be 107, but it wasn’t : it was 436 : 4 times the amount if the risk was the same, so the risk of dying if not wearing a seatbelt is some 4 times that of if wearing a seatbelt.

 

The stats don't show it is safer to not wear a seatbelt. It would do, for those RAW mortality percentages, if the % of drivers who wore a seatbelt was 56.4% or less, but it is some 84%, on the figures stated.

 

Mind you, they say 75% of people have no trouble with basic maths, but the other third struggle somewhat .......

[Conniff]

I dunno what or why you are arguing, the law says you 'will' wear one so stats matter not

[BazzaS]

I dunno what or why you are arguing, the law says you 'will' wear one so stats matter not

 

The stats matter if trying to persuade politicians to repeal a bad law, or not to repeal a good one ........

[*Thumper]

I don't wear a seatbelt .... never will

And have an exemption certificate, to cover me.

 

 

They are available, if you have a valid reason.

[fletch70]

And that is my reason for not liking stats as they can be interpreted almost anyway you want. By a little omission I could have proven that wearing a seat belt caused more deaths

I am afraid that we could number crunch, give different weightings to different circumstances , compare states with seat belt laws against those without, states with high proportion of city dwellers such as , I imagine NY against say Nebraska

 

Lies, Damn Lies and then there are statistics

[Conniff]

I don't wear a seatbelt .... never will

And have an exemption certificate, to cover me.

 

 

They are available, if you have a valid reason.

 

Well whoopee you. Another silly post that has nothing to do with it.

[*Thumper]

Well, that's two silly post's then!

 

 

Seatbelt law, is unnesassary. We are all adults

Whatever the stats say.

 

 

The stats also say that obesity, and type B diabetes kill

It doesn't stop fat people and keyboard warriors, from eating too much

Even if it is humble pie,

[Ganymede]

Well, that's two silly post's then!

 

 

Seatbelt law, is unnesassary. We are all adults

Whatever the stats say.

 

 

The stats also say that obesity, and type B diabetes kill

It doesn't stop fat people and keyboard warriors, from eating too much

Even if it is humble pie,

 

 

 

Why are you exempt if you don't mind me asking please?

 

Also why are seat belt laws unnecessary?

[Conniff]

Seatbelt law, is unnesassary. We are all adults

Whatever the stats say.

 

 

Some are obviously more 'adult' than others.

[fletch70]

Personally I have issues with not just the seat belt law but many other state control type laws . Of course maybe forcing seat belts not only saves lives but also saves the country vast amounts of money but I have never seen any figures to say how much.

 

Differing views are all good, wouldn't it be boring if we all agreed.