Most people take seat belts as an option, but little do they know, seat belts save over thousands of lives each year. Over 7,000 fatal deaths could have been prevented if those victims were wearing a seat belt. They reduce the risk of death for passengers by 50 percent. It is by law that each passenger should wear a seat belt when they have entered a car. Each time you wear a seat belt, you are reducing the risk of serious injury to yourself.
Seat belts are designed to keep you from flying through the windshield of even flying towards the dashboard. When the car is brought to a sudden stop, the inertia, the tendency to fly forward, triggers the belt to lock so the passenger won't fly off of their seat. Even though the belt is just a piece of material strapped across your body, it's intentions of saving your life are drastic and should be taken into much consideration when one steps into a vehicle. The typical seat belt consists of a lap belt, resting over the pelvis, and a shoulder belt across your chest. Both parts are designed to hold the passenger in place during their ride. This is one of the more complex types of belts worn in a moving vehicle. Most belts seen on roller coasters are just lap belt. When in this case, they do prevent most movement for the degree of the car. When there is a belt present in a vehicle, it should be the first you put on prior to moving.
As a passenger's initial speed increases, it takes a greater force to bring the passenger to a stop. The faster you go, the more serious damage your likely to receive in the presence of an accident. Load limiters are used to release a little more belt webbing when great force is applied. This helps to not completely jerk the passenger forward from their initial seat. Load limiters rely on a torsion bar which will twist when force is applied and will lock the belt to keep the passenger in place. In less severe accidents, the torsion bar will hold its shape. But when too much force is applied, the torsion bar will twist slightly. The mechanism used to lock the belt is the pretensioner. The pretensioner pulls in on the belt to keep you in place. The pretensioner is wired to activate the air bag in serious crashes. Each piece of the seat belt is important to saving your life.
Over the years, seat belts have proven to be the far most important safety device in cars and trucks. Technology is working to improve the ways of the seat belt and make it more complex for riders. Each time one enters a car, the first thing they should do is put on their seat belt. This is to ensure that any accident will be less fatal because of the safety the seat belt brings.
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4 comments:
I was very interested in reading about the facts of how seatbelts can save more lives and how much safer they are. I agree that seatbelts are important for people of all ages to wear, and I think it is important to know how these machanisms work. I thought that your information was well written. Nice job.
Wow..there is definitely a lot more going on when there is a wreck than I expected. This was very interesting article and your stats with definitely make me wear my seat belt every time I get in the car.
You included some useful and interesting information (for example, “[Seat belts] reduce the risk of death for passengers by 50 percent,” and “As a passenger's initial speed increases, it takes a greater force to bring the passenger to a stop”), but also a lot of redundant information and ambiguous words/phrases. Take for instance the sentence, “Each time you wear a seat belt, you are reducing the risk of serious injury to yourself.” Being that you have already told the reader that seat belts reduce the risk of death by 50%, it is already obvious that, by wearing one, you are reducing the risk of serious injury.
When I speak of “ambiguous words,” I am referring to sentences like, “Even though the belt is just a piece of material strapped across your body, it's intentions of saving your life are drastic and should be taken into much consideration when one steps into a vehicle.” The word “drastic” seems vague and out of place here. It is generally used to indicate a high level of severity or intensity…and here, it seems, you are talking about the importance of its intentions, or the blatancy of its intentions, or something of that nature, not the intensity of its intentions. Also, that the seat belt “should be taken into much consideration” is already clear, and you would be better off giving your reader another reason WHY it’s important instead of just restating its importance…perhaps by offering another statistic (just a suggestion). It’s also clear that you’re talking about circumstances in which “one steps into a vehicle”; that part of the sentence is unnecessary, and can bore the reader and make him/her think that you have nothing significant or new to say and are just trying to fill a page with words.
More examples of this restatement/repetition are seen here: “When there is a belt present in a vehicle, it should be the first you put on prior to moving,” and here: “Each time one enters a car, the first thing they should do is put on their seat belt,” and also here: “This is to ensure that any accident will be less fatal because of the safety the seat belt brings.” To some extent, restatement can help you convey your message to the reader, but if you rely on it too much, your writing becomes monotonous and sounds like a textbook rather than a creative essay.
Your explanation of how a seat belt actually works is very good. So, notice the difference between that and the more repetitive parts. If you would just continue to throw out new information, it’ll be interesting the whole way through, instead of just part of the time.
It was interesting reading your blog because a lot more goes into seat belts than I thought. Although I am someone who always wears their seat belt, I took your blog as almost being persuasive, so if I wasn't someone who wore my seat belt, this blog would encourage me to do so. Your statistics are what made me want to keep reading.
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