This past week, I went to a dinner in honor of a friend from out of town. Luckily, my best friend and I carpooled together so I had someone who I knew could keep me relatively in check should something ridiculous happen. The dinner was great, until the conversation turned to the subject of what will get you pulled over for in a car. Where Washington State police don't enforce the cell phone law as much as they probably should, they do, however, enforce the seat belt law. The gentleman sitting next to me (we will call him Sid, because it is a really simple name for what we can only assume is a simple man) says that he has to pull his seat belt over his chest every time he see a cop because he doesn't wear his seat belt.
This is when that "I cannot, in most circumstances, control my mouth of my face when I think someone is an idiot," thing happens.
"Why wouldn't you wear a seat belt?" I ask, visibly and audibly perplexed, with a hint of judgement in my voice.
"Why would I?" Sid, the moron, replies.
Lucky for everyone involved, someone new showed up and I could not respond in the following way:
Why would you? What the hell do you mean why would you? Do you not wear a seat belt because you are "like the safest driver ever"? Regardless of your driving skills, you can't buy a effing crystal ball that will tell you if every effing driver around you is a safe driver as well or if everyone's car is functioning properly or if some catastrophic event is going to take place that will veer your car off the effing road. Not wearing a seat belt is a great way for natural selection to make you a dead moron or a quadriplegic or put you in a coma or worse, you will teach a small child your terrible habit.
Seat belt use WILL save your life, Sid. And the following resources all tell you the same information.
First of all, Linday "Hot Mess" Lohan even wears hers when she is drunk and all-coked out.
Not that anyone cares, but Hot Mess Lohan was recently involved in an accident and was told by the officers the responded to the scene that her and her passenger wearing seat belts helped save them from further injury. Here is her car that ate it:
Source: People.com
In fact, according to the Seattle Police Department Blotter:
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Washington’s primary
seat belt law. An estimated 1,010 lives have been saved since the
initiation of the law requiring drivers and passengers to buckle up. “The purpose of the law is to save lives and I’m really pleased to see how far we’ve come.” Washington state is a leader in seat belt use in the United States
with 97.5 percent of motorists buckling up, an increase from 82 percent
in 2002 when the primary law went into effect. With the rise of seat
belt use, traffic deaths statewide have declined by nearly one-third,
from 658 in 2002 to 455 in 2011 (preliminary data). Despite these promising numbers, four out of every ten people who
died in car crashes in Washington in the last five years were not
wearing seat belts.
Source: http://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2012/05/16/traffic-safety-celebrates-10-year-anniversary-of-seat-belt-law-and-1010-lives-saved/Even Wikipedia, which is a terrible source and no respectable academic would actually use, backs this up.
Observational studies of car crash morbidity and mortality, experiments using both crash test dummies and human cadavers indicate that wearing seat belts greatly reduces the risk of death and injury in the majority of car crashes. This has led many countries to adopt mandatory seat belt wearing laws. It is generally accepted that, in comparing like-for-like accidents, a vehicle occupant not wearing a properly fitted seat belt has a significantly and substantially higher chance of death and serious injury.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt
Just for good measure, let's throw the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) research in for consideration. Even though wearing a seat belt has nothing to do with the CDC or disease control really, they have studied how amazing and life saving seat belts are.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for people age 5 – 34. Adult seat belt use is the single most effective way to save lives and reduce injuries in crashes.
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5951a3.htm?s_cid=mm5951a3_w
And last, but certainly not least, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration researches the shit out of seat belt use every year, in every area in the country and complies data that always tells you wearing a seat belt is a life-saving idea. (Source: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811544.pdf)
What we can gather from this information is that that the answer to Sid's question, "Why would I [wear a seat belt]?" would be, "Because, Sid, you will die if you do not wear a seat belt."
So put on your fucking seat belt, Sid.
