Modern vehicles come with advanced safety features like backup cameras, tracking devices, and tire pressure monitoring systems, but one thing remains the most important and effective in keeping people safe: the seat belt. Here are some statistics that expound on the importance of seat belts:
- 50 percent (17,000) of the estimated 35,000 deaths due to motor vehicle accidents every year have higher chances of surviving if they wore seat belts;
- More than 90 percent of drivers understand the importance of seat belts, but only 14 percent or less follow this rule;
- Seat belts can lower the risk of getting serious road injuries by 60 percent.
Seat belts were one of the first safety features for vehicles, but it continues to protect drivers and passengers alike from sustaining graver injuries since it ensures occupants stay in place in case of a collision. Unlike other sophisticated systems, a seat belt is the only feature that is required by law and can truly save a life in the unfortunate event of running into a car accident.
What Makes Seat Belts the Most Important Safety Feature of Every Vehicle?
- Seat belts can effectively keep occupants—driver and passengers—from flinging off the vehicle when colliding with a forceful object such as another car, a post, a wall, and more. This can improve the victim’s chances of sustaining pressing injuries and reduce the likelihood of getting killed, too, since staying in place won’t deal as much damage compared to being thrown off your car.
- Aside from keeping you in place, the seat belt also protects the strongest parts of the body for optimum protection. Not to mention, it spreads out the impact over wide spots around the body, which can prevent major injuries since it doesn’t put stress on concentrated areas. More importantly, wearing a seat belt ensures you don’t take any further hits.
- Seat belts also protect the most vulnerable parts of the body, such as your head and spinal cord, by slowing down your body’s response to a sudden crash. After all, buckling up keeps you from hitting the dashboard with your head, plus keeping in place also limits the severity of the impact’s whiplash on your neck.
The Bottom Line: The Perennial, Protective Role of Seat Belts in Vehicle Safety
While more vehicles today can now be equipped with advanced safety systems, traditional features like the seat belt remain a powerful and most effective tool that is critical to the safety of every driver or passenger.
Seeing as seat belts are one of the primary items that can cut down one’s chances of suffering life-threatening injuries or death by a significant margin, it’s no surprise that seat belts will remain a fundamental safety feature in all types of vehicles for years to come.
How Can We Help You?
After a vehicular accident, there are a plethora of repairs that need to be done for your car. One of the most important is to ensure that you restore the safety of your vehicle — that’s where Safety Restore comes in.
We are the leading post-accident restorations company specializing in seat belt repairs and airbag module reset. Besides that, we also provide webbing replacements and instrument cluster repairs.
You can trust us with your safety — get in touch with us today!
