Posted on 02/17/2016 3:58:33 AM PST by SMGFan
The former Miss New Jersey who was critically injured in a crash Monday night was not wearing her seat belt when her vehicle slid off an icy road, state police said.
Cara McCollum, 24, of Margate, was headed northbound on state Route 55 at the time of the crash around 6:53 p.m.
McCollum was driving a 2014 Ford Mustang convertible at milepost 38.4 when she ran off of the right side of the road and struck several trees, police said.
The driver's side front airbag in her car deployed in the crash.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Pretty lady.
Maybe a seat belt law would help. Cause we all know gun laws stop criminals.
How very sad. I hope she pulls through this okay somehow.
But a seat belt WOULD have helped. Air bags can be WORSE than nothing without them.
When I was young and stupid(er), I actually removed the belts from a car because I didn’t like the way that they looked.
This attitude continued until I got into an accident with a semi piloted by a sleeping driver, that with very slightly different luck, would have flipped my car over. It wasn’t illegal to drive without seat belts at the time but the state policeman asked me if I was wearing one while he was filling out a form. He told me that most of the time in that kind of an accident, the car would have flipped over, and in that case, he would have pulled out my unbelted dead body from the car. That changed my attitude.
Later after belts were mandatory in Illinois, they changed the laws to allow “contributory negligence” in adjudicating an accident. That means, if you are injured in an accident not your fault, and you weren’t wearing a seat belt, you could get money for medical and auto repair/replacement bills, but you would get up to and including nothing for “pain and suffering”. So, even if you think that you are invulnerable, there is the financial aspect.
I think seat belt laws are pretty universal. We certainly have them in Texas. But the user still makes a choice, and the law cannot fix it. Just as a criminal makes a choice and the law cannot stop them.
Why would anyone not wear a seatbelt these days.
Reminds me of a crash I had 30 years ago going down the Van Wyck expressway in New York about 5am while it was snowing. I was a stupid kid driving about 70 mph when all of a sudden I lost control and was heading right for a light pole and I knew I was dead if I hit it, it was coming right for me at the drivers side when all of a sudden a miracle, the car somehow moved at the last second and I completely missed the pole and I was able to eventually stop, not a scratch nothing. I had to walk around for 20 minutes to stop my legs from shaking. Ever since then, when I drive on snow I drive like a turtle, I don’t care who blows their horn and passes me. Just like that *snap* you can lose control of your car and get killed. You are driving on freakin ice!
I had to see a rollover to convert me.
Centrifugal force is like gravity. Hard to avoid. When a car does a rotation, the doors come open and the crap inside goes flying out.
Not an experiment I want to perform with me as the crash dummy.
I used t be ho hum about seat belts until I was about the first on scene of a head on crash. I will never forget the face of a man plastered to his front windshield. My hubby flies and is very demanding about wearing seatbelt but not so much in the car yet preaches how flying is so much safer than driving. I love to point out his hypocrisy. I think it worked.
“Why would anyone not wear a seatbelt these days?”
Not sure, McGruff. I do know that a seatbelt saved my life twice. Both times, there was a visible bruising imprint on me from where the seatbelt held me in place (vs going out the windshield).
My Mustang GT doesn’t leave the driveway if there’s a hint of snow or ice. Mustangs and freezing precip weren’t meant to be together. Don’t know if it’s the light rear end or what, but they drive for crap in snow. There is VERY little/no steering control.
Daa. One normally doesn’t find seat belts on a car roof.
They don’t believe in physics? My late father-in-law “didn’t believe” in seat belts, but that’s not why he’s dead. That’s because he “didn’t believe” the warnings on the cigarette packages.
That's better than the mandatory seat belt laws. Let the actions have consequences.
It's mostly tires, although the light rear end, wide tires and high power to weight ration doesn't help.
I've got a neighbor who drives his year round but he puts on snow tires in November and they come off in March. The factory tires are average all season tires which aren't enough for winter in a RWD vehicle.
Most people end up putting on summer performance tires, which _literally_ have zero traction in cold slush and are shocked when they can't get out of their driveway.
Ditto my 03 Mach 1. Several months after I got it I crashed in a very light snow. It was a pretty scary moment. It no longer goes out if there is even the hint of snow.
Because of the way the shoulder strap lays across the chest many women find them irritating and uncomfortable.
BUCKLE UP!!!
I was in a rollover 5 yrs. ago. Belt & airbag both worked.
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