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.
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.
That's better than the mandatory seat belt laws. Let the actions have consequences.