The article expresses the statistics poorly, as journalists too often do. The compliance rate in 1983 was put approvingly at 90 percent, but we're being invited to be shocked at today's non-compliance rate of 6 percent.
It also makes no distinction between compliance in front seats - universal among my acquaintances - and the rear, where too many still think Newton's First Law doesn't apply.
And apparently over-65s find seatbelts 'restrictive'. When I first knew my inlaws (in the late 1980s when they'd have been barely older than I am now) they'd equipped their Sierra with Klunk Klips - handy devices for converting an inertia reel seatbelt into an instrument of death. Are these horrors still about, were they banned, or did they just fade away as people grew up and accepted wearing a seatbelt as the obvious thing to do when travelling in a vehicle?
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Inertia reels seen to have become better as time passes. I've not been in anything in the last 10 years that I would class as 'trying to eat you' or in other words, excessive self tightening.
I must admit I feel strangely naked in the vintage car without belts (no where safe to mount even if you wanted to). But after 100 yards, one doesn't feel anything is missing.
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I have no recollection KlunkKlicks but a quick Google brings up a worrying collection of modern similar lethal devices.
tinyurl.com/Deathguarantee
www.care4car.com/car-accessories-and-gifts/carpoint-seat-belt-clip-klunk-klip.html#.VCq3kBYhBnM
Last edited by: sherlock47 on Tue 30 Sep 14 at 15:01
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I can't imagine getting into a car without putting my belt on, on long distance coaches though I don't bother as they are too uncomfortable. There are times towards Toulouse I did put it on as the roads were very bendy but the rest of the journey I didn't bother. The official line from the coach company was by law (in France) we have to wear, if we get fined it is our problem but they are not going to force us.
What I don't get is why did it take 25 years after 1963 for the rear seat belts to become law? I remember when even fairly modern cars didn't have rear seat belts. I believe it wasn't law until 1987.
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>> What I don't get is why did it take 25 years after 1963 for the
>> rear seat belts to become law? I remember when even fairly modern cars didn't have
>> rear seat belts. I believe it wasn't law until 1987.
>>
It seems incredible now, doesn't it, that they weren't compulsory in the rear. Though I know my Father installed them in the rear of every car they had after we were born, or specified them as options when that became an alternative. But I'm not sure they were even widely available as an option until the early eighties?
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A lot of people from before the seatbelt era found the things irksome at first. Yet another encroachment on motoring freedom, like the MoT and stupid damn speed limits!
Before cars had structures designed to prevent deformation in crashes, front passengers were thought to be more at risk than rear ones who tended to hit the backs of the front seats, often padded, rather than steering column, dashboard (hard in those days with switches sticking out) and windscreen.
Now cars don't crush so easily and have a host of airbags as well as the belts they scream at you to put on. I'm sure we are all a bit safer as a result.
As I get older I tend to worry more about children, especially small ones, in the back seat using lapstrap only, without the diagonal. Sometimes I make them sit so that the bottom end of the diagonal works, but you can't really rely on them not to move about and it's a bit unsatisfactory. A distraction from the driving, not a good thing really.
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>> Inertia reels seen to have become better as time passes. I've not been in anything
>> in the last 10 years that I would class as 'trying to eat you' or
>> in other words, excessive self tightening.
>>
Them Merc does actaully self-tighten the seat belts (front only I think) when they are put on. It must use a motor, as it definitely pulls them tight across your chest, which can be disconcerting to first-time or infrequent passengers!
i guess it uses stuff there as part of the 'pre-safe' technology that senses if an accident is imminent and prepares the car - closes windows and sunroof, tightens seatbelts, arms pretensioners and airbags and goodness knows what else. Not managed to trigger it myself ;-)
(Unlike the pop-up roll bars in a Megane CC, which I did manage to activate during some particularly swift cross country driving on a potholed road!!)
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I remember my uncle often fitting rear belts, every time my grandad bought a car he would fit the belts, he did on my dads Lada too.
I remember this going onto to the early 1990's but I suppose then there were plenty of bangers without rear belts.
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When I first fitted belts (in a Standard Ten), the MIL refused to wear them stating that if she saw a crash coming, she'd brace herself!
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Rear belts were compulsory in Continental countries (well, France, Germany, Sweden that I know of; probably others) much earlier. I remember finding them in a Renault 4 Jogging (!) in France in 1981. Not that the French bothered to wear the things; I did, to be teased with "Tu as peur de voyager avec ma mère?" by my teenage host.
The German and Swedish makers were kind enough to leave them in when they shipped cars over here. I used to go to school in a 1981 Audi 80 that had four proper belts (and one improper one.) Seems a very odd attitude on the part of the other makers to remove a safety feature their cars were designed to have.
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We learned to drive in Australia, seat belt use was mandatory. On our return to the UK seat belt use was optional and yet to become mandatory. Our friends and family thought we were mad as we always automatically put the belts on when we got into a car. It is a habit we have never lost.
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Like anything though, if rear seat belts cost say £10-£20 to fit and install (back in 1980 money) that is a lot of money say over 10000s of cars. There is no excuse but car companies always put profit over safety and still do. My dads mid spec Corsa SXI 14 plate he had as a hire car only had two airbags.
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Not all. Remember Volvo inventing the three-point seatbelt, then making it available to the industry as a whole when it could have made money from a patent?
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/features/the-man-who-saved-a-million-lives-nils-bohlin--inventor-of-the-seatbelt-1773844.html
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Tue 30 Sep 14 at 20:16
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I am finding this thread very tedious. Apart from anything else, safety wonkery is incredibly dull and the opposite of a proper Toad-like driving attitude.
That's enough goddam seatbelts (ed.).
But it's OK by me if the rest of you just bumble on. You will anyway.
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As a family we thought my uncle was insane using child seats and seat belts in his Hillman Minx. How would that kids be able to climb from front to back 'in flight'? How could they sleep if they couldn't lie across the back seat?
Its a wonder I'm alive at all really!
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Way back in the sixties we lived in Leeds but paternal Gran lived in Blandford Forum, we'd go and see her at Spring Bank Holiday en route to Isle of Wight. Mum and Dad used to depart home 23:00 ish with sis and I, aged say 3 and 5, asleep on a mattress in boot of his Vauxhall Victor 'shooting brake'.
Even then, stopped for a routine check by a Copper in the Midlands, there was a comment about how we'd fare in an accident.
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Given that most of the cars I travelled in as a kid were sheds, it was a given no-one would fare very well in the event of an accident. Belted in or not.
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During the 1950s I did many miles in the back of a convertable one of these, probably a Mk1 or Mk2. Seatbelts, safety, you must be joking. :)
www.3wheelers.com/regal.html
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I think the first car I had with a full set of 5 lap and diagonals was the Xantia, but it's possible the 1991/H BX Estate took that crown.
Sure I remember putting after market belt in Mother out Law's Escort c1993 so she could carry infant Miss B in a stage 2 seat. The first one, for new born up to six months, went in the front 3 point with kid faced backwards.
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>> I think the first car I had with a full set of 5 lap and
>> diagonals was the Xantia, but it's possible the 1991/H BX Estate took that crown.
>>
I reckon it was the Xant. I'm sure my BX only had a lap belt in the middle of the rear seat.
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"Given that most of the cars I travelled in as a kid were sheds, it was a given no-one would fare very well in the event of an accident."
Back in the mid 90s in Palmers Green I had taken a few days off to do some DIY on my flat. One afternoon there was an incredible noise as some brainless numpty hit the gas in his 3 litre turbo Supra at the beginning of our street. By the time he'd reached my flat - number 17 - all hell had unleashed. When I walked out of the door he had destroyed 5 or 6 cars plus his own. He was climbing out of the passenger side and the car was lying on it's side. He'd caused an enormous amount of damage (not mine fortunately) but he was unharmed (unfortunately). But despite the collision was finally running of energy, the last car that he hit had completely folded itself in half. I don't know what it was, maybe a Cambridge or that kind of size and shape - but it was half the size of what it used to be.
So given the choice of driving a 60s shed all nice and belted up, or unbelted in a modern motor - a modern car any day please.
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>> brainless numpty hit the gas in his 3 litre turbo Supra
Those Supras could be very silly in the wrong hands. Another numpty - a rich young Indian bloke I gathered, someone like that - hit the gas too hard turning into Ladbroke grove, lost adhesion of all four wheels (in the dry!) and destroyed my first and best Skoda Estelle, a mellow little motor that I got and kept in perfect tune, capable of nearly 50mpg going gently in France, cruising at about 55 on A roads. It was good for years of use, but the numpty hit the rear wheel and punched the swing-axle, one-piece drive shafts into the gearbox, the other wheel being against a high kerb.
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>> And apparently over-65s find seatbelts 'restrictive'.
>>.... as people grew up and accepted wearing a seatbelt as the obvious thing to do when travelling in a vehicle?
>>
I have watched the motorway series with interest.
The latest ...
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04kntmp/the-motorway-life-in-the-fast-lane-4-no-such-thing-as-an-accident#group=p026rcm4
The real worrld @ 32:40 and 45:10 f
IIRC there were other examples in earlier episodes.
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I learned to drive in the Army in 1979; use of seatbelts was compulsory in military vehicles (where fitted) long before it was the norm in civvy street, and it's therefore second nature to me to wear them.
Where HGV's are concerned, much of the disobedience seems to be down to a combination of several factors;
1) Ingrained habit ; fitting seatbelts in HGV's was not a statutory requirement until 2001 and there was no requirement to retrofit, meaning that there are still a considerable number of HGV's still not fitted with belts. Drivers of such would be less likely to instinctively wear a belt once they moved to a newer truck, and of course more likely to forget.
2) Poor installation on earlier models; most HGV seats these days come with the belts built in, older ones had their top mount anchored to the cab which made things uncomfortable and restrictive with air-suspended seats. A severe jolt on a pothole could be downright dangerous in some cases.
3) There is a belief amongst some HGV drivers that in the event of an accident, particularly a rollover, they are more likely to be trapped in the cab if they are wearing a belt.
4) Whilst there is an exemption for multi-drop deliveries, it is only over distances of less than 50 metres. You can perhaps understand why some drivers on this kind of work may bend the rules a little.
Like cars, HGV's have a warning light which displays of the belt is not worn; some manufacturers take this further, Volvo for instance having an audible warning device which alerts the driver once he goes over 20 mph. My Renault just has the warning light. You will also observe that many HGV's nowadays have coloured seatbelts, which makes it easier for the police to spot offenders. A good idea IMO.
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As PeterS points out, Mercedes' front belts pull tight on fastening to eliminate any slack caused by wearing bulky coats etc. The pull motors also activate in an emergency stop :) - I only found this out when demonstrating the "drop-anchor" stop to my soon-to-be-learning-to-drive teenager, to demonstrate how much ground is actually covered whilst stopping.
My Morgan +8 has fixed 3-point seatbelts, with the upper mounting points far too low to be of any practical use. I have evolved a technique of buckling up with the whole belt loosely around my midriff, and then hoicking the shoulder strap up and squirming into it until it fits tightly as intended.
I considered fitting twin roll hoops behind the seats to mitigate any injuries in case of a rollover, but having looked at the car's construction and considered its fairly basic handling and roadholding qualities I have decided simply to never drive it hard enough to risk crashing in it.
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Some considered it safer to not be belted in an open car, preferring to be thrown out in a roll-over rather than trapped inside, unless roll-over protection was fitted.
I used to wonder if the same applied to Triumph Heralds. Ever seen one that rolled? They'd be flattened down to the tops of the doors. The screen surround and bolt on roof seemed to offer little or no protection.
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having looked at the car's construction and considered its fairly basic
>> handling and roadholding qualities I have decided simply to never drive it hard enough to
>> risk crashing in it.
>>
I applied similar logic when I had my GMC pick-up.
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Seatbelts - WillDeBeest
