If You Don\'t Wear a Seatbelt.......
A few years ago I was leaving a track for lunch and taking one of the instructors with me. At lunch he relayed the following:
Now first let me say that I hadn't been driving with a seatbelt since the early 90s when my automotive choices started to come with airbags. I hated the belts since I had a car with the belt attached to an upper door track...so open the door and the top of the belt goes from over your left shoulder, along the opening door towards the corner of the widshield. On the third day I flung the door wide open, jumped in with key in right hand and food in left. Moving food and key around to close door and then reversing the process to start the car was harder than reaching waaay out with the right and fling the door closed. Since I wasn't use to the belt yet, it cycled rapidly towards my shoulder entangling my hands in the process. The food was a Dairy Queen cone that motored right into the side of my face.
Back to the instructor...He said consider you're approaching your favorate S curve...the one with clear sight lines like your in Kansas. The occasional tree or rock are way off line and there is no traffic. You brake hard approaching the turn-in point ready to cross into the empty oncoming left lane to clip the apex before heading back to the right.....or consider the same turn on a cold winter day and your just cruising.
At the point of turn in something happens. If it were winter it would be black ice that you can't see. On your spirited drive a tire is going down or something broke. Either way physics is now taking over the driving of your car. No problem! Plenty of room! Except when the sliding right rear tire hits the rock/curb/or whatever.
Now the good news is that your air bag did not deploy so you can see just fine. Maybe you saw that you were going to bounce off a curb, and you're ready for some hard straight line breaking into those weeds ahead.
Now here is where the instructor made his point, and why I've worn a belt ever since. The bad news is that when the right rear hit that rock your unbelted body was thrown towards the passenger side. Now you not only can't apply the brakes, but your hands have a reflexive death grip on the wheel which is now turning left instead of right. When you eventually hit that tree that was waaaay off line your airbag deploys. Unfortunately your face is bouncing off some hard surface on the other side of the car.
If the belt was on it would have locked your body in place instead of letting it fly. You would have maintained steering input, and at the right point the brakes could have come into play. Imagine the effect of no seatbelt in a multiple car collision on ice where an unbelted driver turns left into the oncoming traffic because his body has bounced over to the passanger side.
I now tell the occasional teenager who may think I'm cool because of my cars, "that seatbelts aren't for safety". They look a bit confused until I say they are for control and give an example. I go from cool to motoring guru. They naturally have to explain to their passengers to belt up because you can't have other people flying around and ruining your steering inputs.
Food for thought. Especially if you have a teenager.
A few years ago I was leaving a track for lunch and taking one of the instructors with me. At lunch he relayed the following:
Now first let me say that I hadn't been driving with a seatbelt since the early 90s when my automotive choices started to come with airbags. I hated the belts since I had a car with the belt attached to an upper door track...so open the door and the top of the belt goes from over your left shoulder, along the opening door towards the corner of the widshield. On the third day I flung the door wide open, jumped in with key in right hand and food in left. Moving food and key around to close door and then reversing the process to start the car was harder than reaching waaay out with the right and fling the door closed. Since I wasn't use to the belt yet, it cycled rapidly towards my shoulder entangling my hands in the process. The food was a Dairy Queen cone that motored right into the side of my face.
Back to the instructor...He said consider you're approaching your favorate S curve...the one with clear sight lines like your in Kansas. The occasional tree or rock are way off line and there is no traffic. You brake hard approaching the turn-in point ready to cross into the empty oncoming left lane to clip the apex before heading back to the right.....or consider the same turn on a cold winter day and your just cruising.
At the point of turn in something happens. If it were winter it would be black ice that you can't see. On your spirited drive a tire is going down or something broke. Either way physics is now taking over the driving of your car. No problem! Plenty of room! Except when the sliding right rear tire hits the rock/curb/or whatever.
Now the good news is that your air bag did not deploy so you can see just fine. Maybe you saw that you were going to bounce off a curb, and you're ready for some hard straight line breaking into those weeds ahead.
Now here is where the instructor made his point, and why I've worn a belt ever since. The bad news is that when the right rear hit that rock your unbelted body was thrown towards the passenger side. Now you not only can't apply the brakes, but your hands have a reflexive death grip on the wheel which is now turning left instead of right. When you eventually hit that tree that was waaaay off line your airbag deploys. Unfortunately your face is bouncing off some hard surface on the other side of the car.
If the belt was on it would have locked your body in place instead of letting it fly. You would have maintained steering input, and at the right point the brakes could have come into play. Imagine the effect of no seatbelt in a multiple car collision on ice where an unbelted driver turns left into the oncoming traffic because his body has bounced over to the passanger side.
I now tell the occasional teenager who may think I'm cool because of my cars, "that seatbelts aren't for safety". They look a bit confused until I say they are for control and give an example. I go from cool to motoring guru. They naturally have to explain to their passengers to belt up because you can't have other people flying around and ruining your steering inputs.
Food for thought. Especially if you have a teenager.