[theDentist]

Ironic that so many Police stations are advertising their enforcement of wearing seat belts for the summer.

[Sgt_Schultze]

That's just a money grab. If there was no fine involved for failure to use a seatbelt, there would be no enforcement. It's the facade of safety which enables the money grab to go on unchallenged.

Surely there is more safety to be gained by going after those who improperly change lanes, fail to signal, drive too slowly or drive to fast. But too many people would be irritated, too many people would be snared, and the safety facade would fall by the wayside.

[TheGeezer]

Why is that ironic?

While the value of airbags seems dubious in the new study, the value of seat-belts is not. The analysis found that proper use of a seat-belt reduces the odds of death by 67 percent for any given speed category and airbag availability.[emphasis added]

Use of a seat-belt is a no-brainer, and anyone who refuses to use one, in view of seat-belt data collected for the last fifty years, has no brain.

If someone you know and care about refuses to use a seat-belt, tell them to go to an amusement park and refuse to use restraints on a fast and jerky ride (I know that's not possible, but just for the sake of discussion assume it is). Obviously, they may be thrown off the ride and suffer a head injury and be paralyzed or die. The very same effects apply to being thrown from a car or into a windshield, or even a padded dashboard, or the back of a seat. Why is it different in a car?

No seat belt = no brain (or, at the very least, a damaged brain).