It’s against the law-and unsafe-to drive without buckling up

CLICK IT OR TICKET

Seal Beach Police are routinely in Leisure World these days, handing out tickets to scofflaw drivers. Some are cited for blowing through stop signs and some, for speeding. But on a recent day, more than 40 percent of the citations were given for failure to wear seat belts, according to Seal Beach police.

It can be an expensive oversight: The cost of an adult seat belt violation in California is $162. Senior drivers can expect dramatic hikes in insurance rates as well.

Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death among those aged 1-54 in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control.

More than half of the people killed in car crashes were not restrained at the time of the crash. Wearing a seat belt is the most effective way to prevent death and serious injury.

It’s that simple, and it’s also the law.

Fastening seat belts in moving cars is mandatory, regardless of the distance or the speed of travel.

California’s first seat belt laws took effect Jan. 1, 1986, and required both drivers and passengers to wear seat belts when they ride in a passenger vehicle in California.

But seat belts have been around a lot longer than that.

The seat belt was invented in the 19th century but was not used in the vehicle industry until1922 beginning with the lap belt in the Indy 500 race cars. The threepoint vehicle seat belt was not introduced till 1959, according to Wikipedia.

“Click It or Ticket” debuted in California in 2005, and since then, the state’s seat belt use rate has increased from 92.5 percent in 2005 to 96 percent in 2018, according to OTS.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Agency (NHTSA) estimates that seat belt use has saved more than 375,000 lives since 1975.

There are several benefits to seat belts:

• Prevents people from being ejected from vehicles.

• Protects from the lifethreatening force of an airbag, which can cause serious injury to the unrestrained.

• Contributes to passenger safety.

• Reduces car insurance rates. The NHTSA conducted a study of car crashes between 1960 and 2012, looking at how various vehicle safety technologies impacted accidents.

Technologies included popular safety measures like vehicle airbags, electronic stability control, power steering and anti-lock brakes.

The study found that seat belts saved more lives than all other safety measures combined, with seat belts alone credited for saving hundreds of thousands of lives.

In a head-on collision between two vehicles traveling at 25 mph, there is a 50-mph impact, which is strong enough to deploy air bags and cause severe injury.

LWers are urged to obey the law and buckle up to stay safe, protect passengers and avoid costly tickets. —Eloy Gomez safety & emergency coodinator