Seat Belts Death Rate?

Question

I was recently in a car accident where the car hit the highway median and flipped a few times before landing, and it was totaled. I got out with just a bloody knee and a cut. Without my seatbelt I for sure wouldve been seriously injured even dead. I remember saying to myself during the accident "thank god for this seatbelt" bc it was restraining me so much.

Anyways, I was wondering what the death rate is for those who wear seatbelts. Whenver I hear of an accident where someone dies they weren't wearing a seatbelt. Now how many deaths occur even though the victim is wearing a seatbelt?

Answer 1

The NHTSA (National Highway Safety Traffic Safety Administration) claimed that seat belts save over 10,000 lives every year in the U.S.

Answer 2

Check the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) website for your stats, that is where they are compiled.

The purpose of seatbelts is to restrain the occupant, keeping them from being thrown around as severly, and keeping them inside the vehicle in a roll-over so the car doesn't crush them. Yes, they serve the purpose and have made a great difference.

Answer 3

The fatality rate slid from 1.48 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled to 1.46 deaths in 2006. When records were first kept in 1966, the rate was 5.50 deaths.

Fifty-six percent of those killed were not wearing seat belts.

Answer 4

sorry i dont know stats. but i was in an accident as a passenger a few years ago, i was not wearing a belt and got thrown through windscreen after it had shattered. i escaped with cuts etc. my friend , the driver died in the car fire because he could not be released from his belt!

Answer 5

Sorry folks, this will be unpopular... but FACTUAL! I am not for or against seat belts, but I am for personal autonomy and real facts so a person can make a wise decision based on unmanipulated propaganda. Ask the above question and you cannot get the straight data, only manipulated statistics. The only statistics are unbelted statistics, try to find belted statistics, its hard enough to find the raw data. The fact that buckled up fatalities are not readily available shows we are being fed propagandized statistics, often delivered in dramatic fashion by those emotionally involved, combined with crash pictures and catch captions...

But if you look at the RAW statistics available you get an entirely different perspective....Raw statistics are different than manipulated statistics...those that are manipulated to propagandize a certain popular opinion, which can be done in several ways.

I will just copy some typical manipulated data quotes from the internet as examples for the purpose of exposing the propagandizing.

1. Conjuring their own results...

ex. ' 75% more people die in the front seat when not wearing their seat belt' ...this statement neither shows the raw data, the purpose and how the data was collected,(which we'll get to in # 4 & # 5) or how they arrived at that conclusion. The dissection of the raw data (here isolation of the front seat) is an attempt to make the statistics support their cause when the whole raw data does not do so as dramatically. (In this year case 55% of crash fatalities were not wearing their seat belt... so do the math... 45% WERE wearing their seat belts, that's only a 5% difference instead of the whopping 25% difference they want to promote.)

2. Manipulated results...

Ex. '19,221 people died from not wearing seat belts last year. There were 34,080 car accident deaths last year. 56% of those deaths are people who were not wearing seat belts. 56% of 34,080 equals 19,221 lives that seat belts would have saved.' This manipulated statistic leads you to believe that if these people would have only been wearing their seat belt they would have lived. However, this is not correct because is also means there were 14,859 that died while wearing their seat belt, no doubt it is possible a percentage could have survived with wearing a belt, but not near the 19,221 they would have you believe, and it is just as possible that some of the 14,859 could have survived if they were not wearing their belt.

3. Apples to oranges comparisons. Comparing unbelted fatalities with belted survivors, is a common manipulation, but only belted deaths can be compared to unbelted deaths.

Another way this is done is through year to year, in not comparing the same category to draw a conclusion. ex. 'In 2008, seat belt use rose from 83% to 84%. Seat belt use saved an estimated 12,713 lives in 2009 alone.' This statistic leads you to believe that the seat belt usage led directly to less fatalities, however, what this incorrect manipulated data doesn't tell you that OVERALL traffic fatalities decreased a total of 9.7% that year whether belted or unbelted, and that traffic fatalities have been decreasing over the years not due to the seat belt use, but due to increased automobile technology...including breaking, sensors, air bags, and now even autonomous features.

4. Data collection purposes...the purpose of collecting data is not to get unbiased statistics to give people information to make an educated decision, but to support seat belt laws. Many states refused to implement seat belt laws for years viewing it as a violation of autonomy, but the federal government withheld road funding from states if they did not impose seat belt laws, in fact the only state in the union not to have seat belt laws is New Hampshire, with the slogan 'live free or die', which also is geographically the smallest in the union, not needing federal road dollars. So all seat belt statics are collected for the purpose of supporting seat belt use, not for gathering unbiased information.

5. Data collection methods...Data collection is taken from live and dead occupants...the only ones who will not lie are dead. Given that a crash survivor will get a ticket for not wearing his seat belt, what do you imagine an unbuckled occupant will tell the police when he is asked if he was wearing his seat belt? Duhhhhh...For this reason the statistic of crash survivors wearing their belts is inflated at best.

6. Emotional Dramatization...If a little less than 50% of all vehicle fatalities are those who are belted in there must be some pictures of those crashes, but try to find a crash picture online that was a belted in fatality! But there is no shortage of such pictures for unbelted fatal crashes, why is that? Propoganda? If this is just information to let the reader make an educated decision why not just give the raw data, why all the emotional over dramatization. I certainly could give you emotional dramas of a friend of mine who rolled everything he touched, 7 cars at last count, two of them at freeway speeds, and walked away from every one of them with only bumps and bruises, or another acquaintance who had the clasp end of the seat belt rip his guts open damaging several organs, or my sister's boyfriend who rolled her truck off a 200 foot cliff, with no belt and was more upset that he didn't get to eat his pizza that was sitting on the dash(it wasn't his truck, hmmm I wonder why they're not together anymore...) or my sister who was in a rollover and walked away while the two others belted in were nursing their belt rash for two weeks, or the guy I pulled out of an overturned semi truck that was trapped by his belt surrounded by a lake of fuel, or the belted in dead guy I pulled out of a pickup who hit a bridge median at 35 mph...but all those emotional stories don't really tell all the statistics do they.

The fact is...The most telling raw data year after year is the total traffic collision fatalities percentage.

ex. "In 2012, of the total traffic collision deaths, 56.4% involved passengers or drivers who weren't wearing seat belts." Of course that means 43.6% were wearing their seat belts, that's a percentage difference of 6.4%...This percentage remains nearly the same year in and year out...If you flipped a coin (as we know a 50/50 heads/tails chance) the number of fatalities in 2012...34,080 times, I bet you would come away with a bigger heads/tails percentage difference than 6.4%. The fact is...you cannot assume a seat belt would have saved the life of an unbelted fatality in a crash any more than you can assume not wearing a seat belt would have saved someone who died while wearing one. Whether a person chooses to wear their belt or not, a person at least deserves the correct raw data to make accurate autonomous decisions.