Please remember to BUCKLE UP!!

[429421Cowboy]

I am posting this as a reminder to please buckle up and use all resonable caution in driving.
Last night a neighbor and fellow FFA member was called home to be with the Lord in a single vehicle rollover. He fell asleep at the wheel and ran off the road and was ejected because he was not wearing a seatbelt.
I am 19 and graduated high school last year. This is the 6th friend my age that we have lost to car accidents in the last 18 months and none were wearing seatbelts.
I do not know if they would all still be here with us today if they had belts on, but it seems too strong to be just coincidence. Please remember to buckle up and drive slower than you think you need, and remind the teenagers in your life that we may think we are all indestructable but in all reality it it only takes one mistake. Do NOT text and drive DO buckle up, do NOT drink and drive, and don't drive tired. Please buckle up guys, it truely does save lives!

R.I.P buddy, you are gone but not forgotten, we will do our best to take care of those you left behind. Safe passage cowboy, you were a good man and will be missed by all. God had bigger plans for you, but we wish He didn't need you so soon.

[DCM]

My nephew rolled his car after hitting a patch of black ice just over a year ago, he was wearing his seat belt and walked away with only a small bruise. The car was a complete loss. :o

A girl went off the road and flipped her car last summer in front of a friends house at about 13:30 hours. She was not wearing her seat belt and was ejected through the windshield to a spot at least 30' from where the car actually stopped when it landed on a tree. :( Her current condition is unknown, but I am sure it would be much better if she was belted in.

We see a lot of ejection fatalities on the news lately!

[Blacksmith]

Thank you cowboy I sent a copy to my grandsons.

[waksupi]

I hear you talking. Nearly every fatality you hear on the news here in Montana, is prefaced by, they were not wearing a seat belt. Buckle up, superman. Save your kid's daddy.

[429421Cowboy]

waksupi maybe you can help me on an actutal statistic but i believe Montana has one of the highest per capita rate of driver fatalities in the nation, no doubt attributed to the lack of shoulder on many roads, conditions and also the high instance of drinking and driving.
It doesn't seem fair that a good young man that was sober and making his own way would get taken so young while so many other teens are out there drinking and driving and doing crazy stunts. He was on his way home to check calves at around 2 in the morning when it happened.

[exile]

As someone who has worked as a vocational rehabilitation counselor for a number of years, I cannot tell you how important it is to wear your seatbelt. I lost count of how many clients I dealt with who were paralyzed, had head injuries, etc., from car accidents that they would have walked away from unharmed if they had been wearing a seat belt.

It does seem as if these type of accidents claim a large number of young lives. That was true when I was in high school some 35 years ago and it is true today. I have also dealt with a number of parents who have lost children due to these types of accidents. As hard as that is on their friends, it is a loss that parents never recover from.

Please refrain from the use of alcohol and drugs, and please wear your seatbelts. (I speak especially to those young drivers with their whole lives ahead of them.)

exile

[Bret4207]

A seat belt won't fix everything, but it would have saved my younger sister and father, both killed in roll over accidents 2 years apart. A good friends wife suffers debilitating neck pain from no seat belt. I've delivered the sad news on too many occasions to believe "It won't happen to me. "

Thoughts and prayers to this young mans family and friends.

[btroj]

To be 19 year sold and know 6 people killed in the past 18 months in hiway accidents.
I can only say wow. What a harsh reminder of the dangers of driving while distracted.
Cars are not a lot different from guns. Pay attention while using them and things generally go well. Play around with them or get careless and you can lose your life.

Very sorry to hear that someone as young as the OP has lost that many people already.

[Reload3006]

my eldest son would be alive today if he had been wearing his seat belt. My wife and I were after him constantly to wear it.

[alleyoop]

As a retired Paramedic I can testify that the number of deaths in traffic accidents are higher among non-seatbelt users than seatbelt users. It still remains your choice but I'll use my. Sorry for your loss

[MtGun44]

Sorry about your friend. I had a fairly serious motorcycle accident at age 19 and spent
3 months in the hospital. That was enough to get me completely over the "I'm young and
tough and nothing can hurt me." attitude which is pretty much standard in young men at
that age. I came out after that with a real committment to safety in vehicles. The only
reason I'm alive is that I had a helmet on in the motorcycle accident. They were optional in
that day, I started off without it and went back and got it. That little thing has really stuck
in my mind all these years.

Lots of friends have been saved in pretty bad accidents by wearing seatbelts, including one with
a broken back that would have certainly been fatal without the seatbelt. In frontal collisions,
the air bags make a huge improvement in survivability, as does the massively improved design
of the cars to crush up to a point, but keep the passenger compartment intact. But you have
to stay inside the vehicle and in position.

Hope that some of your friends are going to be safer after this tragedy, maybe some small good
can come out of a sad ending.

Bill

[waksupi]

I think we have a couple Montana HWP members on here, they could probably give better answers than I.
Something I find peculiar, is WHERE some accidents happen. On the section of Hwy. 93 between St. Ignatius and Ronan, it is pretty much perfectly straight. Good road, wide shoulders. It seems there are more accidents on that section, than on the winding curved sections. Same thing here on my road. There is a blind curve above my cabin, and I have never seen anyone go off the road there, although I always dreaded a loaded logging truck coming off. However, just down the road less than a hundred yards, where it is perfectly straight, I have seen at least ten vehicles go off the road and roll over on to my property.

[429421Cowboy]

Thank you for your support guys, those of you who are or were LEO and had to inform familys or witness these things even more often must truely understand the importance of using your seatbelt.
waksupi, do you think it is a result of people speeding in the straight aways? The roads on you side of the mountains can be fearsome and often have a steep ditch. Lost a partner that ran cows with us over towards Ovando area, he ran right off the road on a straight stretch and rolled his pickup, strangely he wound up just below my brother's girlfriend's house and she was the first one there.
We are not bullet proof even though we act like it, i've had enough close calls to know that and seeing what happens to familys afterwards is on of the worst feelings in the world.

[Mumblypeg]

In 35 years in LE, I worked many more traffic fatalities than homicides by firearms. I never unbuckeled a dead person. It's realy a no brainer. If a vehicle is going 55mph and stops, the occupants keep going unless strapped in. When I met my wife she would not wear a seatbelt. That didn't last long, she said she would think of it as me having my arms around her. In many rollovers the occupants are thrown out and the vehicle rolls over them. I've seen my share of that. I've also seen feet sticking out from under an upsidedown vehicle that was on top of them More police officers are hurt in vehicle wrecks than by firearms also. Speeping cars are harder to stop than a speeding bullet or boolit. Wear them... all the time, one day you'll be glad you did.

[MT Gianni]

I think we have a couple Montana HWP members on here, they could probably give better answers than I.
Something I find peculiar, is WHERE some accidents happen. On the section of Hwy. 93 between St. Ignatius and Ronan, it is pretty much perfectly straight. Good road, wide shoulders. It seems there are more accidents on that section, than on the winding curved sections. Same thing here on my road. There is a blind curve above my cabin, and I have never seen anyone go off the road there, although I always dreaded a loaded logging truck coming off. However, just down the road less than a hundred yards, where it is perfectly straight, I have seen at least ten vehicles go off the road and roll over on to my property.

I hear you Ric. There is a hill near me that saw 4 accidents with fatalities last year. Long climb with some curves but all four were on the back side of a gentle slope. Trailers without trailer brakes, texting and weaving in and out while going 90+ then hit a crane, and rollovers. Good friend is MHP here and he see's no reason other than inattention.

Sorry for the loss of your friend, Cowboy.

[Blacksmith]

I used to be a first responder before they were called that and I started putting seatbelts in cars before they came with them. Ask the first responders and most are seat belt believers. Like Mumblypeg I never unbuckled a dead person.

[DIRT Farmer]

Retired EMT/P and Retired police officer, now a coroner, I have pulled dead people out of seat belts but you always have overachievers. If wearing a seat belt you can keep your self behind the wheel and keep driving after the crash till the car stops.

I worked in a rural setting, I remember almost all of the firearms related deaths, MVC, had to be something different to remember.

[lavenatti]

My seatbelt has saved my sorry butt.

My car doesn't move until everybody is strapped in.

[472x1B/A]

WE don't even pull out of the garage with out our belts on. WE can't afford the fines if caught with out them. It's $150.00 here now. (even the passenger can get a ticket)

[Echo]

Sorry for your loss, 429421. Six in that short period is sobering.

Back in the middle '60's, before seat belts were mandatory, I bought a '58 Jag XK-150 coupe. Stole it, but that's another story. I was flying as a Comm Officer in the Looking Glass project, and had become habituated to wearing a seat belt. The Jag had no seat belts. Guys from my unit installed one for me (paid for by me), and I went nowhere without it being fastened.

(Loved that car. Going to pistol matches in Dallas or Ft Worth, climb up on the Interstate in Shreveport, low gear up the ramp, hit second as I got on the freeway come out of second @ 80mph, come out of third @110, and pull like a champ in fourth. Then slow down to a more reasonable speed - not sedate, but reasonable.)

And no one rides with me, in ANYTHING, unless they are buckled up.

[Dale53]

I spent thirty years as an Insurance Claims Representative. I covered the aftermath of six fatalities in one year. You literally live with the survivors handling medical bills, funeral bills, liability payments. You work with people who are crippled for life and those who are fortunate enough to recover and those who do not.

It would make me furious to see the remains of some young person (and some not so young) who literally threw their life away by the very act of failing to use their seatbelt. On the positive side, I remember on fellow in a VW who dropped a wheel off the pavement on a narrow country road, hit a culvert full tilt, with the car going end over end several times. The VW had the seat belt set up that would not allow you to enter the car without it. This individual walked away from that horrible one car accident with only a scratch on the side of his nose where his glasses scraped his face. You see a few head on accidents where both cars were destroyed and they drivers who had seat belts fastened walk away.

A seatbelt is not 100% but the odds are GREATLY improved if you are wearing one.

Here's to seatbelt use!!:drinks:

Dale53

[shooterg]

Sorry for your loss, but I'll be the heretic here as far as seat belts. Been in several bad accidents(not my fault, really !). In 2 of 'em the area I was seated in was smashed to h--- and gone. If I'd been strapped in, I'da been smashed too. And I rode without a helmet when I could too - did ya know the weight of a helmet could snap your neck if ya hit something low over 15 mph ?

Last time I saw a stat, about 55% of highway fatalities were not belted. Means 45% were.

I'm OK with laws mandating use by under 21, but being the freedom loving redneck I am, do not want the government mandating use by others.

[DLCTEX]

My youngest son is undoubtedly alive due to a thought prompting him to fasten his seat belt after driving 100 miles without it. A few minutes later he hit a large wild hog and rolled about six times.He suffered about a thousand cuts from glass and still has it working to the surface more than 2 years later, but walked away. The thought was of a young man who had worked for me and was killed in a wreck a few weeks before after being ejected.

[Reload3006]

Sorry for your loss, but I'll be the heretic here as far as seat belts. Been in several bad accidents(not my fault, really !). In 2 of 'em the area I was seated in was smashed to h--- and gone. If I'd been strapped in, I'da been smashed too. And I rode without a helmet when I could too - did ya know the weight of a helmet could snap your neck if ya hit something low over 15 mph ?

Last time I saw a stat, about 55% of highway fatalities were not belted. Means 45% were.

I'm OK with laws mandating use by under 21, but being the freedom loving redneck I am, do not want the government mandating use by others.

I dont believe in laws mandating the lack of freedom but the argument you give for not wearing a seat belt was the exact argument my son gave and he is just as dead think about it.

[429421Cowboy]

I agree with Reload, there are too many variables to know exactly what might save your life, but i know my he and several others of my friends that we lost would almost surely still be if he had his belt on.
I did not start this thread about weather or not to wear a belt anyways but it seems that is what it has turned into. If you don't want to wear a seatbelt or helmet fine, but start another thread for that discussion.

[ErikO]

The only friends I've lost in car wrecks were either drunk or ejected.

Nobody is strong enough to hold on to 150 lbs going 3000+ fps. Condolences to those whose loved ones have tried and to those who had to bring the sad news to the next-of-kin.

Also, for those with wee ones in car seats, replace the car seat after EVERY and ANY accident. Also, do not buy these items used, the little ones are too precious to wager their safety on. Thankfully I have zero first hand experience with this not being followed.