Seat Belts When Driving

Although wearing your seat belt is one of the top safety precautions when it comes to riding or driving in a car, accidents still occur due to people being lazy and not wanting to wear their seat belt. Drivers and passengers do not wear seat belts for tons of little reasons. Some forget to wear them, while others are just plain lazy and think they shouldn’t have to put on seat belts. After some time, this becomes a really bad habit. Accidents can happen. Some may be small accidents, and some may be severe wrecks. Drivers who don't like wearing seat belts often say that accidents don't occur to them if they are careful enough. Accidents do happen even to the most cautious of drivers. This is because sometimes, accidents are caused by different things that are beyond the control of the drivers. For example, another drunk driver may be the cause of the accident.

According to Newton's first law of motion, an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. It is the natural way for objects to keep on doing what they're doing or keep going the same direction. All objects resist changes in their state of motion. In the absence of an unbalanced force, an object in motion will maintain its state of motion. This is often called the law of inertia. The law of inertia is most commonly experienced when riding in cars and trucks. In fact, the tendency of moving objects to continue in motion is a common cause of a variety of transportation injuries. Consider for instance the unfortunate collision of a car with a wall. On contact with the wall, an unbalanced force acts upon the car to quickly bring it to a rest. Any passengers in the car will also be decelerated to rest if they are strapped to the car by seat belts. Being strapped correctly to your car, the passengers share the same state of motion as the car. As the car accelerates, the passengers accelerate with it; as the car decelerates, the passengers decelerate with it; and as the car maintains a constant speed, the passengers maintain a constant speed as well. Yet, if the seat belt is not used, the passengers are more likely to maintain its state of motion, and fly out the window.

So the safety belt helps to safe guard the lives of the passengers should there be an accident. Even when there is a great impact, the safety belt will be able to prevent the body from being flung forward. For serious accidents, the belt may save a driver's life, including your friends, and family.