A friend's grandfather never wore his seatbelt. He was in fine health. One day, they rear ended someone. He was in the back seat and died because he was essentially thrown underneath the driver's seat. Had he been wearing a seatbelt he may have been injured, and given his age it may have been severe, but he would have lived. No one else in the car was seriously hurt (all wearing seatbelts).
Two weeks ago a driver decided to do a U-turn from the right lane. I was in the left lane. I was spun around from the impact. While I am injured, because of the seatbelt it's just whiplash and other soft tissue injuries. If I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt I know I would've been tossed around inside the cabin, or I would have had to tense up more to maintain my position in the seat. Either would have resulted in more severe injuries.
These are relatively uncommon events. You cannot control the driver of your vehicle screwing up and hitting someone. And as a driver you cannot prevent others from hitting you in every case. Seatbelts may be uncomfortable (though after 35+ years I don't notice anymore), but 20 minutes or a few hours of discomfort are worth it to prevent life changing or life ending injuries.
I can tell you firsthand that seatbelts prevent injury. I was recently in a wreck where the driver overcooked a turn in the wet on the off-ramp from the Mass Pike to 128 We hit the guard rail on the inside of the turn once or twice, and the concrete barrier on the outside of the turn twice, including head-on at the end of our spin-out. Either the driver or I or some object hurled forward between the seats folded my phone in half, which was sitting in a narrow pocket in the center console. I sprained a finger on the door handle. I would surely have hit my head more than once on the windshield and side glass had I not been belted in.
Once out of the car we could tell it was quite a wreck: the engine was pushed in and the whole front end crumpled. The front wheels were destroyed. Both sides of the back were rounded off. The doors opened with some difficulty. The smell of airbag propellant makes me think it must be similar to model rocket propellant.
I've had that happen to me a few times (no collisions, fortunately, but close calls) where a driver makes a u-turn from the right lane. What on earth possesses someone to make that decision? The best I can figure is that they need the width of the entire road to do the u-turn, and they don't check the lane properly.
While we're on car safety, remember to put the damned cellphone away while you're driving!
I've been rear-ended 3 times in the last 8 years by people on their cellphones! Two were at 40+mph (blithely drove into my rear at full speed) and totaled both cars.
One of the most irritating things is seeing "professional" drivers using their phone while driving. I've seen countless taxi drivers texting while driving around passengers and it's a big reason why I prefer to walk 30 minutes+ to my destination over ever riding in a taxi.
Yeah I've stopped sans putting it in a holster that is in the same FOV as the windshield and using it for navigation. I had a close call or two and realized that by default may people will not only use their phone in a dangerous way, but use it in their lap. Moving your FOV to your lap while controlling a car is absurd.
I crashed a truck into a hillside a few years back. I came out unscathed, except for a small amount of bruising from the seatbelt. It was a hard enough crash that it ruined my phone, and my glasses flew off my head.
If I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, my head most certainly would've connected with the windscreen or the steering wheel, likely giving me a broken nose or jaw.
Which brings me to another safety tip, don't have unsecured items sitting in the back of your car. Because if you crash, they literally become missiles.
I tboned another vehicle once going about 45mph, without my seatbelt on. My head did impact the windshield, and that left me with a knot on my head, and a small cut. I also had a small cut on my knee from something under the steering wheel. I was otherwise unharmed.
I, of course, think it's imperative to wear your seatbelt, but our anecdotes don't really do much to tell that story.
