Auto Seatbelts...use lap belt?

[mikeand]

I use both, though my auto belts dont move anymore. Pain in the butt having to undo the auto belts everytime getting in and out.

[skimsucka]

20ish mph

Mmmmm maybe i will run lapbelt all the time ahah

[neanderpaul]

20ish mph

[skimsucka]

I was wear the passive restraint and not the lap belt once. I rear ended someone. My left knee punched in the left side speaker grille. The right knee bent the key over in the ignition. The shoulder restraint cracked my sternum. That was in teethstiva about 15 years ago.

How fast were you goin paul?

[skimsucka]

I wear lap belt section on highway luv the auto belts tho

[neanderpaul]

I was wear the passive restraint and not the lap belt once. I rear ended someone. My left knee punched in the left side speaker grille. The right knee bent the key over in the ignition. The shoulder restraint cracked my sternum. That was in teethstiva about 15 years ago.

[Safety Guy]

BTW, if you wear only your lap belt, it is important to pull it snugly down over your hip bones (pelvic area) where the belt will bear against your skeletal system instead of your soft belly parts in a crash.

The pelvic area is pretty strong and should withstand the impact, especially as belts are designed to stretch a bit in a crash.

If it goes into your soft parts, however, it will crush and grind anything underneath the belt as your entire body weight times several Gs adds hundreds of pounds to your mass. Just imagine lying on a bench and having someone drop a 500 pound barbell onto your stomach from ten or fifteen feet high!

Wear lap belts as tightly as you can stand them, with or without a shoulder belt to help distribute the weight.

Karl

[Safety Guy]

There are supposedly documented cases of decapitation when wearing only the shoulder belt. They are rare but I read about them in multiple places when I was teaching driver's ed back in the early to mid nineties.

Try these links:

http://articles.cnn.com/2001-05-21/us/zarrella.debrief_1_lap-belt-seat-belt-seatbelts?_s=PM:US

http://www.southerninjurylawyer.com/product-liability/seat-belt-failure/

An article on an actual incident involving a 1988 Escort:

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19910620&slug=1290106

A more comprehensive article on the same 1991 incident:

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/13/us/chest-harnesses-in-autos-viewed-as-possible-peril.html?src=pm

Finally got one noting professional journal articles, but I can't seem to access them:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=seat%20belt%20decapitation&itool=QuerySuggestion

On a different note, ya gotta read this bit of "incomplete avian" history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken

Just remember, chickens have simplified nervous systems and are able to run around quite a bit after being decapitated. As far as I know, human beings just twitch a bit, or after actual death, muscles can spasm, scaring anyone nearby.

One more very interesting "decap" of this subject area:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._White

Interesting, bizarre and very unusual, but quite impractical. So don't get your hopes up.

Buckle that lap belt and don't lose your head! :p

Karl

[Charlie1717]

Always! It is a habit that I am happy to have.

[Grey Vw]

Never. I do love the auto seat belts though.

[Zanzer]

I took the auto belts out of mine for a while when I tore the interior out. To date I've been pulled over 8 times for seat belt. It's great when the cop walks up and I point at the lap belt I'm wearing

I ended up putting the drivers side auto belt back in. Although it doesn't work and I have to manually slide it back to make it look right. I got tired of getting pulled over all the time.

[freshtiva]

Sweet. Gonna make it to madness?

No, its 2000 mile round trip for me.

[link5186]

I throw the lap belt on if I see a cop pull a u-turn or if other traffic makes me nervous. The best safety device is an alert driver.

Sent from the bathroom via crapatalk

[jamesmc]

Safety doesn't matter in a festiva. If you're in an accident you'll die. >_< Seriously though, I wear it. Every bit helps with these cars.

[htchbck]

I hate the auto belts... two of our three Festivas have them, as well as my MX6. I need to switch all the festivas to manual. But to answer the original question, yes, I always use the lap belt. Just imagine how pleasant it would feel in a wreck at freeway speeds... car stops, the top half of the belt catches you, the bottom part of you slides down... till the belt catches the bottom of your head