Seat Belts and Morons

I do not claim to be particularly bright, so it may not be surprising that I am unable to figure out why some people refuse to wear seat belts. But I can’t. Once upon a time, when they were just lap belts, there may have been a semi-valid excuse. With a lap belt, a driver was just a projectile hinged in the middle. If you stuck something directly in your path, as happens in most automobile accidents, the lap belt just insured that your head was going to be the first thing to strike something rigid and fatal.

Since the advent of the shoulder / lap combination belt, there has been no excuse. While not as good as the X-belts worn by race drivers and pilots, shoulder belts are far superior to lap belts. They actually do a pretty darned good job of keeping you from getting killed after you have screwed up and whacked your vehicle into something at speed. When combined with air bags, their safety record is about all that we can hope for from mechanical devices.

I have heard a number of reasons for not wearing seat belts.

It is safer to be thrown out of the car.” The only people that say that are people who have never been thrown out of a car.

Who needs a seat belt just to go down to the store?” Everybody. Those are the trips where most of the accidents happen.

Heck, I haven’t ever been in a wreck. I’m too good a driver for that.” Has anybody seen this guy’s medications? He needs to start taking them again, today, right now.

There are more of these, but they all boil down to the same thing, really.

I’m too stoopid to wear a seat belt!” Now we’re cooking with gas!

Your first hint should have been that all of the people delivering all of those other lame excuses had drool running down their chins and were breathing through their mouths. Pretty much, the only valid reason not to wear a seat belt is that you have an IQ somewhere to the south of that of a pineapple, or perhaps okra.

As long as these morons are driving alone, though, there is a silver lining in this gray cloud. They are much more likely to die a violent death at a younger age than those of us that do wear our seat belts. That, in turn, will automatically remove a lot of stupid people from the gene pool. Natural selection relies on the stupid creatures dying, and the smarter people staying alive to breed. Natural selection is a good thing.


Comments

Seat Belts and Morons — 4 Comments

  1. What really infuriates me is when people don’t properly buckle their children in. It’s one thing to risk your own life, but to risk your own child’s life is disgusting.

  2. Artemis, you are 100% correct! There is little more maddening to me than an SUV speeding past me on the turnpike with three or four young children chasing each other around all over the car. THAT should be one heck of an expensive ticket when they are caught, which I hope is before anyone gets hurt.

  3. Please, Oh god please, don’t ever refer to the belts worn by racers as an X-Belt. It’s a 5 point strap

  4. LOL! Only when the racing people are feeling particularly posh. Generally, it’s just “the straps” or “the belts” or occasionally some slightly profane version of either, as in “the (insert preferred expletive here) straps.” The more posh use reminds of the demands of firemen to be called “fire-fighters” because, I assume, that will somehow automatically make them more manly. People that run into burning buildings are already fairly brave (or completely daft) in my book, without gilding the verbal lily. Ditto the racing safety harness. ;o)

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