Your Money, Your Life, or Your Seat Belt

Writen by Mike Oliver

A seat belt is one of those things in life that just doesn’t make sense to about 40,000,000 people in the United States. After all, freedom of choice is the Free World cornerstone and when it comes to our automobiles, we want to ride them any way we choose.

“Liberty or death!” shouts a protestor on the nightly news. He values his God-given Freedoms to drive without fear of an illegal search and seizure. “The people,” he contends, “aren’t idiots and can govern their own safety.” Courts determine whether driving without a seat belt is a Right or a Privilege, but “by God we will defend our freedoms ’till our dying breath.”

Unfortunately, that’s just what happens each year.

What these people don’t realize is just what choice they are making when they drive without a seat belt wrapped around everyone in the car.

Government and industry have sponsored multi-million dollar safety seat belt awareness campaigns for decades. Usage has climbed, but only slowly through the years until recently.

It’s easy to recognize at least one popular national slogan:

• Buckle Up For Safety

• Seat Belts Save Lives

• Buckle Up America

Officer Friendly would appear in class to teach all about car safety. He didn’t come into every room, so some of us were indoctrinated with second hand playground news.

State sponsored campaigns are less well known.

Missouri had the lowest state seat belt usage as the year 2000 approached according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA). Only 60% of Missourians wore seat belts, so in a $300,000 concerted research effort, the State of Missouri studied advertising strategies that would appeal to all age groups. Radio stations received Public Service Announcements, 64 local newspapers printed press releases while two carefully selected slogans were printed on 26 billboards that read:

• It takes 3 seconds to buckle up. Dead is Forever

• You think a zit is bad? Try a windshield.

Did the State of Missouri reach the target audience?

Results: Seat belt usage among all age groups

• Escalated to nearly 68% about equal to the national average at the time.

What was the real success?

Hundreds of lives were saved yearly and serious injuries were avoided.

“Click ItOr Ticket” kicked off in May of 2003 as the latest national seat belt campaign with a starting advertising budget of $25 million paid for by the US Government. That’s a lot of money to begin an advertising campaign about seat belt usage. Was the purpose to really save lives, build up local treasuries, or just advertise? The results easily speak for themselves

Safety belt use in the United States rose to almost 80% in 2004(the highest single year increase) up from 58% in 1994. An additional 10% rise in safety seat belt use could save an estimated 8,000 more lives per year and prevent more than 100,000 traffic related accident injuries.

It’s estimated that more than 14,000 lives had been saved with seat belt use in data compiled by the NHTSA for 2002. And of the almost 33,000 passenger vehicle occupants who were killed during the same period 59% weren’t wearing a safety seat belt. (NHTSA).

This isn’t a near 50:50 chance that you’ll be killed with or without a seat belt. Serious injuries far exceed deaths. There are almost 7,000,000 car accidents in the USA alone each year. Almost 3 million people are injured. Thousands of those injuries are preventable with proper seat belts. See statistics: www.car-accident-advice.com

The NHTSA estimates that had all vehicle occupants over the age of 4 been wearing safety seat belts,

7153 more people would be alive.

Those are brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers.

Statistics are people.

Does it really sound that simple?

Wear a seat belt to significantly increase the chance of surviving a car accident.

People are creatures of reminded habits who participate when threatened with economic loss. The Click ItOr Ticket campaign primarily advertised an aggressive ticketing effort by local police departments.

The campaign doesn’t include shocking video footage showing ejected car accident victims. There aren’t many hard-hitting statistics such as:

In 2002, 73 percent of passenger car occupants who were totally ejected from the vehicle were killed.

-NHTSA

The primary cause of death for people aged 4 to 34 is car accidents.

-National Center for Health Statistics

In 2000 total economic cost of motor vehicle accidents in the US is equal to 2.3% of Gross Domestic Product or almost $820 per US resident.

-NHTSA

We all pay.

Yet the “shock & awe” techniques have been used over and over in previous education campaigns.

The choice a person has to wear a seat belt without threat of economic loss is a luxury because statistics bear it out. The chances of receiving major injuries during a serious impact without a seat belt increase twenty-five times.

There must be other reasons why a person would gamble life and money over the use of a seat belt. Most adults have heard all this before.

“Seat Belts are uncomfortable” - Complaint 1

Today’s seat belts are adjustable. Read your car documentation to make sure you’re wearing them properly. The shoulder belt should never be worn under the arm or behind the head. That position almost guarantees injury in an accident. Seat belts are positioned to give you a range of useful movement and then to hold you in place should you exceed that range. However, a person still has freedom of choice: Wear a seat belt or become 1 of the 73% who is ejected. Comfort vs Risk.

“I’m a careful driver and have never been in an accident.” - Complaint 2

Eight out of ten drivers will be in a car accident within the next 10 years.

Choosing to wear a seatbelt makes a lot of sense, because the facts explain the risk to your own life. Playing the odds in Vegas is better than playing the odds with your life.

“I have air bags all around my car. Why do I need a seat belt.”

Air bags cushion impact. It’s better to strike the deflating air bag than the immovable dashboard. However, a seat belt protects you from the air bag.

Airbags explode in front of you at 200mph.

An airbag deploys so fast that it seems to inflate and deflate before the explosive sound is over. When you move abruptly forward in a car accident, the safety seat belt stops you quickly as the air bag approaches your chest. Even with the seat belt on you may feel like someone punched you hard in the sternum a day or two after the accident. However, without the seat belt on, you risk serious injury from the air bag alone.

I was wearing my seat belt in a car accident when the air bag exploded into my chest. It took a dozen X-Rays to prove my sternum wasn’t fractured, but the pain lasted for a month. Without the seat belt

I’ll let you use your imagination, but without the seat belt and the air bag?

I wouldn’t be here. The car accident story is at www.car-accident-advice.com

‘I don’t drive far.’ - Complaint 3

80% of traffic fatalities occur within 25 miles of home and under 40mph

‘I just can’t be bothered.’ - Complaint 4

‘I can’t tell other people in my car to wear them.’ - Complaint 5

‘Seat belts rumple my clothes.’ - Complaint 6

The list of complaints could fill this page, because a person’s ability to rationalize what not to do has no bounds.

For those who don’t wear seat belts, look to see if it’s simply because you don’t want to be told what to do by a police officer who is writing a ticket or by statistics that have been shouting the same message for decades.

Statistics in the use of safety seat belts, injury prevention, and lives lost are as clear as day.

1. You have a high chance of being in a car accident.

2. A seat belt provides tremendous protection.

People don’t want to lose freedoms, so some create lawsuits to rescind primary enforcement laws. There is definitely merit to protecting the loss of the simplest freedoms and merit in getting the word out about preserve our lives with simple changes.

While we talk about it, 1000’s of people die each year because they don’t wear a seat belt. Those people don’t need to worry about losing any of their freedoms.

I love freedom, but I don’t want to lose a loved one either.

Learn the right lessons from Buckle Up America

That sounds a lot easier than being forced to Click Itor Ticket.

It’s a choice: Your money, your life, or your seat belt.

By Mike Oliver

www.car-accident-advice.com

Free to distribute by any media as long as links are maintained

Share This

Performance Computer Chips For Cars And Trucks

Writen by Matthew Keegan

Hey, look under the hood!

It’s a bird!

It’s a plane!

It’s SUPERCHIP!

With apologies to Superman, performance computer chips or superchips are quickly becoming a popular way for auto enthusiasts to squeeze out more power from their cars. Basically what a superchip mod does is to store a new engine management program in your car’s computer. Noticeable increases in horsepower and torque as well as improvements in driveability are the chief benefits of this type of chip. Installation is easy and the price is right…we’ll examine just how easy and cost effective a superchip is below.

Depending on the make/model of your car or truck, a superchip can help your vehicle crank out from 9 to 60 more horsepower. Not too shabby when you consider some compact cars barely make it to 115 horses. Yeah, you could have elected for the more powerful engine with some cars but the $1000 or better mark up in price dwarfs the price of a superchip. Better to go with the superchip and pocket the savings.

So, how hard is it to install a superchip? Actually, it is really a simple procedure:

1. Locate your car’s computer chip [usually found in your dashboard].

2. Remove the factory installed chip and replace it with the superchip…one chip slides out and the other slides in.

3. Place a cover over the chip to keep it in place and to keep dirt and dust out.

That’s it! The hardest part will be to remove the dash, but even that job isn’t all that difficult.

As I said previously, the price of installing a superchip can be done for a lot less than an engine upgrade. Prices start below $300, so it ends up being one the cheaper performance enhancing mods out there.

You can also find other types of performance computer chips that will work well including Jet Chips and the Hypertech performance chip. With either chip you stand to wring out additional performance from your car for a reasonably priced mod. Hey, if it is increased performance you want then one of these chips is for you!

Share This

Understanding Your Car’s Spoiler

Writen by Tracy Dawson

Most of car owners today, specially the young ones, always look for updates on exterior components to enhance their car’s appearance.

Probably one of the most significant yet most ignored external part of your car is the spoiler. Other people consider spoilers as devices exclusively made and utilized by sports car. This is because of the fact that spoilers are generally used by high-powered sports car to maintain balance when traveling at great speed. Spoilers are not really intended to be utilized only by sports cars. Other car fanatics can also equip their conventional vehicles with spoilers to have a nice and sporty look on the exterior.

A spoiler is an aerodynamic device optionally attached to a vehicle that is designed to literally ’spoil’ air movement across the body of a moving vehicle. As a result, the vehicle will have an enhanced stability by decreasing the lift and decreasing drag caused by accelerating at high speeds. The main purpose of the spoiler is to interrupt the air flow going over the car’s body thus reducing the amount of lift generated naturally by the shape of the car. The result is an increased amount of force pushing between the tires to the road surface that provides greater traction. The increased traction enables the moving vehicle to effectively turn, brake, and accelerate with increased stability and control.

There are different types of spoilers depending on their use, location in a vehicle, and the vehicle type. One common type of spoiler is the wing. Usually, wing spoilers are firmly mounted at the rear of a vehicle. The purpose of the wing spoiler is to create down force that provides the car an increased stability when accelerating at high speeds. Another type is the front spoiler, also called the air dam, which is located at the underside of the front bumper. Other spoiler types include tailgate spoilers, truck cap spoilers, and cab spoilers.

Spoilers became more popular nowadays because it provides vehicles a unique and stylish appearance. There are lot of high quality spoilers out in the market today such as Ford spoilers, Toyota spoilers, and Honda spoilers.

Share This