by Kathy Williams

Created on: August 05, 2010   Last Updated: August 06, 2010

Seatbelts and the Law

For the last 20 years we have all heard how great seatbelts are in our vehicles, and if we wear them, they will save our lives if we are in an accident. Our government provides statistics that demonstrates how seatbelt enforcement saves lives. However, if we take a closer look at those statistics, we will see that our government is leaving out some very important information. Wearing seatbelts during an accident can actually cause death rather than survival, and requiring American citizens to wear seatbelts is immoral and possibly even illegal.

In the 1950's airbags were tested by the auto industry, and found to be safer than seatbelts. The Department of Transportation (DOT) attempted to get airbags put into all motor vehicles. Even though the American citizens preferred airbags, the automotive industry argued against them because they were much more expensive than seatbelts. These early seatbelts did not hold people securely in place during an accident, and were even the cause of broken spines and broken necks. The same seatbelts were still used up through 1989 in some vehicles, and many of these vehicles are still in use. To make matters worse, in the 1980's some manufacturers introduced seatbelts that attach to the door, which has proven to be dangerous in an accident because the driver can be ejected from the vehicle during impact if the door opens (Willis, n.d.).

The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) does a state by state survey every year. The last available data is for 2008 and shows that four states had an increase in fatalities, even though they have seatbelt laws. Wyoming fatalities have actually increased by 4% (Seatbelt Enforcement, 2009). New Hampshire does not have a seatbelt law, but their death toll for 2008 was only 139 (2008 Traffic Fatalities, 2009). It stands to reason that if seatbelts save lives, then those four state’s fatality numbers would have gone down too. New Hampshire’s statistics could not possibly be so low if they are not required to wear seatbelts. So there must be something else going on here. Men in particular tend not to wear seatbelts after dark, which is when most accidents occur (Seatbelt Enforcement, 2009). In 2008 twice as many men died in auto accidents as women - 26,616 males and 10,631 females (2008 Traffic Fatalities, 2009). However, according to NHTSA, in 2009 the total number of fatalities due to automobile accidents has dropped to an all time low of  33,963 (NHTSA,

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