Feel Sorry For Stupidity?
I don't know how often someone dies in a car accident, they have stats for that, like 1 every 47 seconds or whatever it may be, but I am not sure what it is exactly. What I find amazing is how often those involved are not wearing their seatbelts. Take this particular accident for instance:
The teens were trying to imitate a car commercial in which a Toyota jumps a bridge. What makes this accident even more appalling is the complete disregard for human life that the driver shows when interviewed by the local paper recently. The driver of the car, Joseph Fitzgerald, 16, of Omaha, was quoted as saying "This was not my fault, I shouldn't be the one who gets blamed, everyone in the car wanted to do it." WHAT??? WAKE UP JOEY!! YOU WERE DRIVING THE CAR!! There should have been some responsibility taken by each of the riders in the car to have worn their seat belts, especially given the stupid stunt they were attempting to recreate, unfortunately, no one did wear seat belts, and this is the result.
I feel that every single accident involving injury should be reported in the papers with large red letters under the news headline "SEATBELTS WERE NOT WORN" when people do not wear seat belts and get hurt. And in massive wrecks with minor injuries, "SEATBELTS WERE WORN" to reiterate the importance of wearing a seatbelt.
I hear some pretty amazing excuses as to why someone doesn't wear a seat belt:
I don't want to get trapped in the car (if it goes underwater/ starts on fire)
This is really a two part excuse, and both parts are incredibly ignorant. If your car starts on fire following an accident, it's likely there was a pretty significant impact that created the fire, if you don't have a seatbelt on, it's likely you are going to be injured, and a good chance you will be injured so badly you won't be able to exit the car at all. As far as going underwater, studies have shown that there is such a small chance of being involved in a submersion accident in comparison with other accidents, again outweighing any reason for not wearing a seatbelt. Not only that, but a car becoming submerged also has impact that may throw the person from the seat just from the car hitting the water, not even mentioning what may have led to the car going into the water to begin with. Being belted in allows a person to orientate themselves to where they are at within the car and increases the likelihood of escape.
If I'm thrown from the car I won't be injured as badly
This is such a bad excuse I have to stifle laughter when I hear it. Where do you end up when you are thrown from a car? Well, you end up being thrown into the path the car is moving, be it rolling on it's wheels, end over end, or side over side. Time and time again people are killed by vehicles crushing them after being ejected. Also, being ejected from a car at 60 mph, it doesn't matter what you hit, you are going to be severely injured, even landing in a grass ditch will leave you in the hospital with broken bones, probably worse.
I don't want to wrinkle my dress clothes
Yes, god forbid you get a crease in your suit jacket. Hey, your dress clothes will look really nice on you at the funeral right? I mean, after your head makes contact with the windshield at 60 mph, but wait, I guess your blood will ruin that particular outfit, now won't it?
I can hold onto the steering wheel and avoid being ejected or going into the windshield
Who are you kidding??? The laws of nature are against you in this one, the force exerted by your body moving forward at even 35mph as a vehicle comes to an instant stop in a collision will bend the steering wheel first before breaking your grip and hammering you into the windshield and/or tossing you from the car, you don't have a chance of 'holding on'.
It's such a hassle to deal with putting a seatbelt on and off, and it's so constrictive
Hmm, versus the minor hassle of hospitalization, surgery, scars, paralysis, and death, I suppose that excuse makes sense right? It takes all of 3 seconds to put a seatbelt on and maybe 2 seconds to take it off.
There are no good excuses for not wearing a seat belt. Oh, the last one, I would be injured worse with a seatbelt on; Nope, there is such a slight chance of that happening, it's ridiculous to even try to use that as a valid excuse. And, just for the record, I survived a wreck in which I would have died if I had worn a seatbelt, in which the rear door collapsed inward and into the seat where my 4 year old body would have been sitting had I been belted in. But even I know that it was a fluke. So don't think I'm going to feel bad for someone who doesn't wear their seat belt and gets killed in an accident, ESPECIALLY an accident they may have walked away from or been injured in slightly had they worn one. Stupidity isn't much of a reason for pity in my opinion.
