Originally posted by McFarland
I know what I saw. Me cousin was killed by his seatbelt holding him to the impact of that tree. I'll explain to you how it happened:
It was supposed to be a race, but it may have turned into a fight. Whether it did, we will never know. But we know he was murdered. He neared the finish line, and crossed it before the other guy. The other guy, he doesn't like this. So he pushes the back end of me cousin's car, twice. My cousin spun around on the road more than 180 degrees, his back wheels go into the ditch. The front wheels get traction again, spinning the car around. It goes off the other side of the road sideways, and jumps a ditch four feet deep. The wheels catch the rim of the ditch, though, and proceed to start his car into a flip, but first he hits a tree in his driver's side door, his seatbelt catches, holding him to the blow. He wipes out the tree, and proceeds to flip, end over end now, five times, ending up with his front facing the the road, his car turned 180 degrees since it hit the ditch, and on it's wheels. If me cousin had not been wearing a seatbelt, he would have survived. You can't say seatbelts are completely safe.
Sorry your cousin died. You describe a situation based on that collision. I've been to many many collisions doing investigations of what and how it happened.
The scenario you described would likely be fatal in any event, seat belt or not. You claim the belt held him to the impact. The scenario you describe would have had him striking an object at high speed. The car door comes to a very sudden and violent deceleration. His body is not going to magically slow down or not also impact the door at the same speed the car was traveling, belt or not. The impact likely would have killed him anyhow since there was NOTHING to slow the rate of deceleration from the impact. No matter what he was going to hit the side of the door there at high speed since the body does not slow before impact with something. The belt didn't "hold him to the blow" his own inertia forced him into contact with a fixed object, the tree, via the door the same as if he had just hit the tree with his body at the same speed.
Your succeeding description was of a car flipping 5 times. You honestly expect a non belted body to remain in a car through that??? Do you not think that even somehow he had remained in the vehicle that he wouldn't have been thrown around inside the car as it violently flipped end over 5 times???
Sorry it wasn't the belt that killed him. It was the high speed impact with the tree and the flipping of the vehicle end over end. The only reason his body was still in the car instead of being flung out, possibly being struck be the car or simply smashed into the ground by the high speed impact with the ground was because he had a belt. If the impact was severe enough to wipe out a tree and flip the car like that not to mention a very rapid 180 turn there is no way you can expect a human body to withstand that kind of force unprotected or to remain in the far stronger car without a belt.
You want to dismiss the use of a safety item because it wasn't 100% proof against everything. Sorry but life is not like that. The only single absolute 100% guarantee you have in life is death. You simply want to dismiss the other 95% protection the belt would give you simply because it's not proof against every possible situation. That's simply foolish petulance based on an incorrect assumption.
