Question:
I'm sure you've all seen those wonderful movies about how they tout off the reasons for wearing seat belts right?
Those wonderful plastic, lifeless, dummies they use just love their job.
Having personally been involved in a rollover, with no seat belt on, I can attest to the fact that those movies are totally wrong!
During the rollover, every muscle in your body tesnses up locking your body into place. As you have your hands on the steering wheel, they do not fling around freely as the movie shows.
Your legs are literally locked into place by the fact of all that dashboard stuff right beside them. They remain frozen in place until you come to a rest.
If you're in a cabover, the engine compartment will keep you locked in place even more.
Crash test dummies limbs are joined by very flexible articulated joints which will react totally different than a human body will.
Since dummies have no muscles, have no brains, the limbs do as limbs please.
Dummies do not accurately predict what a human body will do.
So therefor, the actions of the dummies sell the product.
When will the industry put a real human body in a car and film it as it rollovers? Never. Because it will show the truth.
BTW, I walked away from the crash site with not even a scratch. The car lost a mirror though.

Answer:

Originally
When will the industry put a real human body in a car and film it as it rollovers? Never. Because it will show the truth.

Are you volunteering to be the dummy? You might just fit the bill.
car safe.
I like all dogs I meet, and some people too!!

Answer:

So many TROLLS!
When will they ever fix it?
Doubts he has been in a roll over and I have 11 years of LE to prove your wrong and CP has many more years as an LEO to prove you wrong.
There are 4 dead kids that were from this town that say you are wrong!
Go away TROLL!!!
PK
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The 2nd Amendment...
The next generation is only as good,
as the last one left it!

Answer:

The car lost a mirror though.
that was it ? yea right.

Answer:

A troll?
No. I'm just relating to you all what happened to me personally.
Did you see last year's "Pikes peak hill climb"?
They had 3 class 8 cars in it. One of them rolled over on the side at the end. That's very close to what happened to me.
Volunteer to be the "dummy"?
I've thought about that and I would.
Just to prove my point that what they show with the plastic lifelsess versions, is totally wrong.

Answer:

There was an episode of Dragnet where Sgt Friday describes what actually takes place in an accident where a seatbelt is not worn. Part of the monolog is that the body stiffens up and the bones are crushed as the result of the stiffing.
The reason the most drunks and asleep drivers survive horrific crashes is that they were relaxed; and the reason that their victims die or severely injured is that they tense up.
The purpose of the crash test dummy is to measure the force of the impact on a body, not to simulate what the human body does in a crash.
-J

Answer:

Good point drvierj.
Except that Friday was wrong in his assumption that the bones crush.
They crush due to the force of the impact involved.
In my particular case, I just kind of rolled gently over onto the side like putting two wheels of one side on a ramp.
The tension comes from the fact you know it's happening and can't do anything about it.
If you were a stunt car driver, and doing rollovers for a living, your body does not tense because you know it's going to happen.
That's why DUI's walk away from the scene. Because they don't know it happened.
I saw a guy walk away from his car after it had gone airborne at 60mph, clipped through a telephone pole, and landed on it's roof. He had no idea where he was.

Answer:

"airborn at 60...went thru a telephone pole """
Give new meaning to the term "Long Distance" ??
[Pipeman]
[I Thought I had made a mistake until I realized it was just an error.]

Answer:

Laying a car over is one thing - surviving a high velocity roll or a high speed impact is quite another. Considering the g-forces that are either whipping you around in a roll or slamming you forward in an impact, if you stiffen up, your body is going to break up into itty bitty pieces. Stiffen up on a layover and you're right - you can probably maintain your position fairly well. Stiffen up when you roll it and the first people on the scene better have a mop.
=======
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Answer:

lost4evermore
There are always crashes with special circumstances that are exceptions to the general rule. Lost, it sounds as if your crash was just a 90 degree roll, laying the car down on its side. It evidently did not go on its roof.
I was in a special circumstance crash back in 1956 when seatbelts were recommended for racing but were unavailable otherwise. The car spun about 220 degrees, then backed off a low embankment. The MG TD flipped over backwards. Without seatbelts, I was able to scoot down into the tunnel next to the transmission. Had I been strapped in, I probably would have had my skull crushed. As is, I needed 32 stitches and had abrasions and black eyes for weeks.
Does that mean I shouldn't wear seat belts? Absolutely not. My crash was a 1 in 1000 event. For the other 999, seat belts save lives. The evidence is too overwhelming. A large number of car driver deaths in crashes are due to drivers being ejected from the car, usually through the windshield.
As for the body tensing in ways dummies cannot, consider two things:
At 6 Gs (six times the force of gravity) a 180 lb driver has an effective mass over 1000 lbs. Can your muscles keep you from slamming into the steering wheel, dashboard or windshield? No way! Six Gs is the average decelleration of a class 8 in a crash. Half are at greater forces.
The engineers who develop them are well aware of the differences between dummies and people. Joints are articulated and tightened to accurately reflect the forces that muscles can generate. These variables are built in to the test.
It is logical to take a general rule and apply it to specific incidents. It is not logical to take a specific incident and make it into a general rule.
I urge you and everyone else to wear your seatbelts. You may never need them, but if you have a crash, do you want to gamble? Will it be a 1 in 1000, or do you think it might be a 999 in 1000?

Answer:

My personal experience causes me to believe that seatbelts actually only work 50-75% of the time. I have seen people cut in half nearly by seatbelts and others burned alive because the mechanism was jammed and they could not free themselves. Seatbelts work for forward crashes and they work a lot better when airbags deploy also. As for rollovers, rearender benders and especially side impact crashes they are only marginally effective. However, I will add that since I cannot accurately predict the future to know what is going to happen to me if I should crash, I always wear mine in the car. Whether it is the law to do so or not doesn't matter.

Answer:

As I understand a crash, the killer is that the vehicle stops and the occupants are still moving at the initial impact speed. Then they slam into the stopped vehicles dashboard, steering wheel, etc. If the person is buckled in, they are slowed down with the vehicle. Keep in mind that modern vehicles are designed to absorb the impact of the crash, thus lesson the impact to the occupants. When older vehicles hit something, they stopped dead. When modern vehicles hit something, they are slowed down, rather then come to an instant dead stop.
In a crash there are two impacts, the initial impact from when the vehicle strikes the object and the second impact when its occupants strike the inside of the vehicle. The purpose of the seatbelt is to lessen the second impact. The goal of modern vehicles is to slow the stop caused my the initial impact down to the point the the second impact by the occupants is survivable. A crash with a 6G deceleration is still more survivable then a crash with 10G deceleration.
Part of freezing on impact is that yes your body will stay in position, but you will have torn ligaments because the force will literally tear your muscles apart.
It has been a while since I thought this through, but I seem to recall that the bones are torn apart by the freezing well. They are broken before the body strikes anything else.
One of the problems when they started with the new crash zones in vehicles was there was more penetration by the scar object. They started seeing a lot more leg injuries because of passenger compartment collapse. In the older vehicles there was rarely penetration into the passenger compartment. In the newer vehicles the passenger compartment is also designed to slow the vehicle down and as the result it also collapses during an object strike.
The other problem with the newly designed crash absorbing vehicles is where the vehicle settles after the initial impact. In older vehicles the vehicle rarely moved from the initial impact point. Two cars scar head on were usually left at the initial strike point. In the newer vehicles since the vehicles are designed to absorb and dissipate the energy of the impact, they are not usually found where the initial impact took place. In the old days you just measured the skid marks up to the impact point. Today you have retrace from where the vehicles ended up, back to the impact point and then what ever information you can gather before the impact, skid marks, etc
DUI's and asleep drivers walk away not because they didn't know what happened, but because there were unaware of what was happening.
NO, our muscles cannot stop us from slamming into the windshield. In trying to avoid slamming into the windshield, we will tear them apart in the process. And we will still hit or go through the windshield.
Given all the statistical data and personal experiences in crashes with seatbelts, you can put me down for a yes vote for seatbelt usage.
-J

Answer:

I just saw a piece on the History Channel where they're already talking about and working on implementing 4-point harnesses, as used in race cars, in passenger cars. Turns out normal 3-pt. harnesses allow a certain amount of body twist(beginning with the unrestrained shoulder) in certain situations making the restraint useless.
I hope to see this soon.
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Answer:

YDSM? Where have you been?
The 4 point system has been discussed for cars for nearly 10 years now.
As a compromise to the 4 point, why not have a 2 point system where the lap belt acts normally, then you simply connect the over-the-shoulder harness to the lap belt with a single click.
When not in use, the shoulder harness is stored in place against the roof liner.
Now you don't have that harness cutting your neck in two.
Yet have the safety of ebing locked in place better.
Paul A. Don't get me started on G forces ok?
There is no way on earth physically possible to generate anything greater than maybe 3 g's with a standard vehicle.
Do you realize what your speed would have to be in order to obtain 6 g's? No manufactured ground vehicle can go that fast except a rocket car.
I just love it when they talk about G forces on roller coasters. What little there is, they make it sound like the normal body can't handle it.
In a standard car or car, you can't generate enough G fore to make a substantial difference.
I just love it when people throw numbers around when they don't understand what they're talking about.


Answer:

I'm fully aware that 4 point harnesses have been in use for years and have even been considered for use in passenger cars for as long. The point of my thread was to mention that I happened to witness recent discussion of their use on a very popular television program which leads me, at least, to believe we are probably getting close to seeing them in cars in the future.
As for your "2 point" idea, think about it. What you describe is actually a 4 point system. The lap belt consists of a 2 point system and the shoulder belts add another two points, hence it being a 4 point system. How the shoulder belts attach to the lap belt is irrelevant. The term point refers to an anchor point, not joining points.
As for your comments on G forces, it's obvious to me the other poster(s) are referring to deceleration forces, not acceleration Gs. I don't care what car you're in, if you're doing 70+ MPH or so, you're definitely going to experience some deceleration Gs if you happen to slam into, say, an overpass support.
Please re-read your original topic post, think about it and refrain from arguing further here as the only possible outcome is you looking even more foolish than you currently do.
Have a good day. And buckle up.
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