Why Are Seat Belts Important

Dominic Graver

Mrs. King

ELA 8th Hour

07 April 2017

Safety First

Quick! Your life is at risk in a car unless you read this. This will teach you the importance of wearing your seatbelt when driving or a passenger anywhere in the car. Seatbelts should be required by the law, to provide safety to citizens.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, car accidents are the leading cause of death among those aged 5 to 34 in the United States. The most reliable method of saving lives and preventing injuries from occurring is to wear a seat belt. However, millions of drivers and passengers choose not to wear seat belts on everyday occasions. So now, it's basically meaning that just because it's uncomfortable doesn't mean you wear it.

Seat belts save lives and prevent or lessen injuries in automobile accidents. The key to their success, however, is that occupants must use them. Because most seat belt designs require active choice by the driver. inventors have developed passive restraints, that is, safety devices that require no user action. The first passive restraints were modifications of seat belts themselves; belt position was coordinated with starting the automobile, which caused motorized belt-attachment points built into tracks to move in such a way as to wrap the belt around the driver or passenger. Could be stowed in front of the occupants and inflated automatically by a container of compressed gas in the event of a collision. In the United States, automotive engineers developed Kent's idea further. In modern cars, lightweight bags made of nylon-reinforced plastic are stored in the hub of the steering wheel on the driver's side and in the dashboard on the passenger's side of the front seat. Airbags themselves can cause death and injury under some circumstances (though overall they save prevent many more deaths and injuries than they cause). The National Highway Safety Administration (NHSA) found that more than 50 drivers and passengers lost their lives due to impact from airbags in the period from 1994 through 1996. Many of those injured or killed were children. Airbags had been designed based on car occupants of average size, so the force and direction of impact of the bag itself could hurt children or small