Seat Belts Save Lives

Seat belts do save lives, witness the big drop in fatalities right from the day seat belt wearing became compulsory in Australia. We are rightly proud to have been world leaders in this legislation, which began in Victoria almost 30 years ago.

A large percentage of road fatalities comprise vehicle occupants not wearing seat belts. Which should get the road safety authorities off their simplistic ‘speed-kills’ bandwagon. The trouble is that it’s so much easier (and more lucrative financially) to set up an automatic radar trap than to physically look for people not wearing seat belts.

A similar idiotic trick is to only put on the seat belt when a police car is sighted, then take it off again when the car has passed. Not an unusual act among some young blokes in the bush, and one they openly boast of...

What really rankles with me is that tens of thousands of people are legally not wearing seat belts. Truck drivers and taxi drivers are the main culprits. How governments can look at statistics which prove without the slightest shadow of a doubt that seat belts save lives – then allow people to drive without them, is beyond me.

Not wearing a seat belt is tantamount to suicide. Which is exactly what it is in some cases. Though the subject is usually only mentioned under the breath, there's increasing speculation that some otherwise unexplained deaths in single-vehicle crashes are suicides.

It would be possible to investigate individual fatalities and come to a conclusion about personal reasons for a crash, but there seems to be an understandable reluctance to do so. So, always wear your seat belt. And please get into the habit of putting it on before you start to drive, not 100 metres down the road when you have to take your attention from driving to find the belt, then the buckle, then finally strap yourself in. That is if you haven't had a crash during all that fumbling around.