People Need to Wear Seat Belts: Chances of Being Ejected from Vehicle in a Crash Increase Exponentially if They Don't

Too many people are losing their lives because they aren't buckling their seat belts. It happens every day, and the public isn't doing enough to educate itself on what can happen when someone neglects strapping themselves in.

Here's a demonstration of what can happen when someone falls asleep at the wheel and isn't wearing a seat belt. That's no crash dummy being tossed about. And he did not survive.

Here's what a crash looks like from the outside. It isn't funny.

Consider: it takes an average of three seconds to fasten the darn thing. Three seconds of sacrifice can save an entire lifetime.

I wrote a heartbreaking letter of sympathy to a friend of mine a couple of years ago who lost her youngest son to an auto crash after he was forcibly ejected from the back seat of the car in which he was riding in rural Houghton County, Michigan. I mourned his loss along with others who knew him better: his family and friends and his mom, Mary, who I knew particularly well from our Scouting activities together.

Two teenagers needlessly died in that accident. The 16 year-old driver was charged in the accident.

This year it happened again. This time it was one of my brother's friends who died early Friday morning after he was ejected from a SUV and it rolled over him.

I graduated with his sister Darcy from high school; his older brother was a year ahead of me; his younger brother was a year or two behind my brother. I wish there was something I could do; but there isn't.

All I can do is raise public awareness of how dangerous it is to not buckle up and I hope others will do so as well. Please encourage your loved ones, friends and strangers to use their seat belts; not only for the holidays, but always. There is simply no excuse for not buckling up.

I've been known to turn off the engine of my vehicle and wait until someone who was refusing to put a seat belt on did so. Aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors have fallen victim to this tactic; even a former camp supervisor did about four years ago.

I wouldn't recommend what followed that incident: he ordered me out of the driver's seat, switched places with me, started the camp truck (I had hurriedly put my seat belt on in the passenger's seat), put it in gear and mashed on the gas. He promptly slammed us into a tree. I stayed in my seat; he hit the steering wheel and cracked his sternum and broke his nose. He was lucky that we hadn't built up much speed. I didn't have a scratch on me, except for some frayed nerves. Our boss was definitely not a happy camper and his boss wasn't either.

And the funny part was that I was held blameless as he was driving (and had been warned by the boss about speeding in camp before) and did not have his seat belt on. The truck was totaled.

Everyone in the car should have a seat belt on, no matter where they're sitting. We can reduce traffic fatalities immediately and substantially if everyone takes an additional three seconds....