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Fasten up, go!

Seat belts secure our safety on the roads to a great extent. But how many of us bother to use them?

SAFETY MATTERS Seat belts can make the difference between life and death

When late Lee Jong-Wook, former Director General of the World Health Organisation said, “Road safety is no accident,” he probably had the millions of road users in India in mind who risk their lives by ignoring safety precautions such as wearing a seat belt, little realising that a device like this can make the difference between life and death.

Case histories abound of lives saved thanks to the seat belt and those needlessly lost for throwing caution to the winds. Recounting the story of a lucky survivor who escaped unhurt thanks to his seatbelt, Dr. S. Sivamurugan, Orthopaedic Surgeon, Dr. Soundarapandian Bone and Joint Hospital, says, “Rohit is a successful business executive in his early thirties. Constantly on the move, traversing across cities was part of his job description and long drives got his adrenalin pumping. On that eventful December evening, while trying to negotiate a curve on the highway, his car lost balance, toppled and came crashing to the ground. After all those heart stopping moments, Rohit escaped with only minor injuries thanks to his seat belt.”

How do seat belts protect wearers?

Says Dr. Sivamurugan, “In the event of a car crash, seat belts are intended to keep you in place and reduce injuries (such as injuries to the head, spine face, chest, abdomen, hips) by preventing you from hitting hard, interior elements of the vehicle (such as the dashboard and windshield) or other passengers and preventing you from being thrown out of the vehicle.”

Explains S. M. Iqbal, president, Rane TRW Steering Systems, “The passengers’ chest and other parts of the body are protected by not allowing movement beyond the specified level as per standards. Many times people are reluctant to wear the seat belt because they feel they are tied down to the seat and their movement restricted. This is a wrong notion. The seat belt design allows normal movement but restrains the occupant from moving to an unsafe position.”

For an even better understanding of how seat belts protect you from being thrown out of a vehicle it is worth revisiting some lessons we learnt in school.

According to Newton’s first law, an object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

If a moving car were to abruptly stop and the seat belts were not being worn, then the passengers in motion would continue to be in motion.

Assuming a negligible amount of friction between the passengers and the seats, the passengers would most likely be propelled from the car and hurled into the air like projectiles (and one is twenty times more likely to die if this happens).

Why don’t people wear seat belts ?

“People imagine that they need to wear seat belts only for long distance travel. This is a grave blunder as head on collisions even on local trips can cause serious physical injuries to the passengers,” says Dr. Sivamurugan.

Or it’s a case of drivers who feel that they are good at the wheel and presume their quick reflexes can help them in case of a crash. This kind of thinking is foolish because you never know what kind of drivers you might encounter on the city roads and even if you managed to brace yourself, the force of the impact would shatter the arm or leg used to brace yourself.

Also remember that the best place to be in an accident is your car, rather than being airborne. And if you need to get out in case of a fire you are better off if you haven’t been knocked unconscious in your car.

As for airbags, they increase the effectiveness of a seat belt by 40 per cent. But they were never meant to be a substitute since they don’t protect against side impacts at all.

So buckle up that seat belt as a matter of habit. It takes seconds but remember it secures your safety on the roads like nothing else can.

SUDHA UMASHANKER

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