A Readre's Digest "LIFE SAVER"
No other man-made safety device has saved as many lives as car seat belts. The Indian Supreme Court recently ordered that all front-seat occupants of cars must wear their seat belts. Even if the traffic authorities have not enforced it everywhere, it's vital for your own safety that you comply.
Buckle Up and Live! By Mohan Sivanand
Driving along the highway, K.E. Chandrasekaran, a 40-year-old Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, silk-mill owner was seven kilometres from his home when his Maruti-800 collided with a tanker truck. Immediately thereafter, a van smashed into Chandrasekaran's vehicle from behind. Flung out of his car, Chandrasekaran suffered head and other injuries. He was taken to hospital, but died while being treated.
Driving home from his factory in Silvassa, Gujarat, Mumbai businessman Dilip Vakharia, 46, had just completed half the 160-kilometre journey when a herd of cows began crossing the highway. To avoid hitting the animals, Vakharia pulled off the road. But as he got back on the highway, Vakharia's Esteem skidded into an approaching lorry. Although the car was smashed beyond repair, Vakharia, and his brother Ashok, 48, who was sitting beside him, escaped without injury.
Every year thousands of Indian motorists die in much the same way Chandrasekaran was killed-because, like him, they weren't wearing seat-belts. But ask the Vakharia brothers what saved them. "The seat-belts we were wearing," says Dilip. Adds Ashok, "It's foolish to travel in a car without being buckled in."
Those in the know agree. "There's no question about it," says transport management expert Balendu K. Singh of the Loss Prevention Association of India (LPAI). "Seat-belts significantly reduce the risk of fatal-and serious-injuries."
So, why aren't seat-belt laws strictly enforced? "It's because of our lackadaisical attitude to safety," says noted Mumbai consumer activist M.R. Pai. He also feels that it could be because the authorities find it hard to enforce. "Innumerable motorists jump lights and change lanes without signalling," he points out, "and do so with impunity because we don't have enough policemen to catch and fine them. In such a situation, requiring everybody to wear seat-belts isn't easy."
Since 1994, all new cars sold in India must be provided with seat-belts for the driver and front-seat passenger. Why should you buckle up, even if the authorities aren't strict about it? Consider these facts:
Seat-belts save lives
Safety belts on seats were first used in aircraft as early as 1910. And by the 1940s tests demonstrated that similar belts could substantially reduce injuries in car accidents. Even so, it wasn't until the '70s that many countries passed legislation making it compulsory for motorists to use car seat-belts.
Ever since, seat-belts have proved to be life-savers wherever they have been used. In 1978, the French police estimated that seat-belts reduced car-accident fatalities in France by 63 percent. Recent American studies show that seat-belts reduce death and injury in car accidents by up to 50 percent, and that in 55 percent of fatalities, the victim was not wearing a seat-belt.
How seat-belts work
Dr Dinesh Mohan, the Henry Ford Professor of Transportation Safety & Biomechanics at Delhi's Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), who has researched road safety for more than two decades, explained the dynamics of a car crash to me. "When you're inside a moving car, both you and the vehicle are moving at the same speed," he says. "But if the car suddenly stops, you're hurled forward because you continue to move at about the same speed as the car at the time of impact. So your head and chest smash into whatever is in front of you-the windshield, the dashboard or steering wheel." Sometimes you can be thrown out of the car through the windshield or an open door. In fact, if this happens, the chances of death increase substantially.
What seat-belts, therefore, do is restrain you in such situations. "They are so designed," says Professor Mohan, "that when the vehicle you're in suddenly slows down or stops, you're held back to your seat and prevented from hitting any hard structures in the car. That could mean the difference between life and death."
Types of seat-belts
Most of today's car seat-belts comprise a lap band and a shoulder band, held in place by a single buckle and bolts fastened to the car's body. There are, generally, two types of seat-belts in Indian passenger cars-"non-retracting" and "automatic-retracting." The first, an older design, doesn't adjust to the wearer's movements, and is less convenient. The second, which is more common today, allows you to move around more freely, but has a mechanism that restrains you when the car hits something or stops suddenly.
It's not only front-seat passengers who risk life and limb in an accident. If back seat passengers are not buckled in, they, too, can get thrown about and be killed or seriously injured. They can even hurt front seat occupants if they're hurled against them.
The importance of buckling up even if you sit at the back is something 56-year-old Kumi Avari is only too painfully aware of. Kumi, who was on vacation from England, was in the back seat of a Maruti-800 travelling along an elevated section of the Bombay-Goa highway. Trying to avoid a recklessly driven lorry, the Maruti plunged into a field three metres below and hit a tree-trunk.
The Maruti's steering column snapped and the dashboard was thrust inwards. But because they were wearing seat-belts, Kumi's niece Pearly Dastur, in the front seat, and Pearly's husband Fardun, who was driving, escaped what they both believe would have been certain death. Kumi, who wasn't belted up, was thrown about the car's rear and received multiple injuries in addition to breaking both her legs and an arm. "I'm sure I wouldn't have been injured so badly if the car had seat-belts at the back as well," says Kumi, who is still undergoing physiotherapy years after the accident." In England I make it a point to always buckle up."
CULTIVATING THE HABIT
"In spite of overwhelming evidence on the benefits of seat-belts," says IIT's Professor Dinesh Mohan, "a majority of people in all countries have seen them as inconvenient and not used them until they were forced to by law." But anybody who buckles up regularly will tell you that it's a bother only initially. "In fact," says Ashok Vakharia, "nowadays I feel uncomfortable if I don't buckle up. I do so even for a short drive to the corner store."
I learned the importance of always wearing seat-belts during a Sunday drive with my daughter Lynn. I was driving slowly, and although I made Lynn, then 9, buckle up, I didn't bother to do the same myself.
As I came down a steep incline at about 25kmph the car's bumper knocked a low, slanting coconut palm and began to skid. Luckily, I managed to brake just in front of a cement wall.
When the car stopped, I was thrown forward and my head smashed into the rear-view mirror assembly. Luckily, it caused only a minor cut. Lynn, of course, didn't receive a scratch. Still, I was thoroughly shaken.
"It is very important to buckle up even for low speeds," says Professor Dinesh Mohan. "We've found that any impact on the human body by a hard object at more than 10kmph can cause injury. If the impact is at more than 25kmph, the injuries can be serious."
Buckling up children
Regular seat-belts are too big for infants and small kids, so a separate child-restraint system should be properly installed in your car's back seat for them.
"Holding a child in the lap of a front-seat passenger is extremely unsafe," warns Dr P.S. Pasricha, Maharashtra's Additional Director General of Police, and a leading traffic management and safety expert. "If a crash or sudden braking occurs, a lap-held child can be thrown against the dashboard, as well as crushed by the weight of the adult holding him." Sharing a seat-belt with a child, too, is dangerous-in a crash the child can be crushed or suffocated between the belt and the adult.
Maintaining seat-belts
After a car is involved in a collision, all seat-belts should be tested by an authorized service station. In fact, it's preferable to replace automatic-retracting belts, since a crash can permanently spoil their delicate locking mechanism.
As for non-rectractor type belts, check periodically for any damage. If the bands are frayed or worn-out, or if the buckles do not lock perfectly, they must be replaced.
If your car does not have seat-belts-for either front or back seats-you can get them installed by a mechanic, as I did recently for my Maruti's back seats.
Don't let enforcement delay get you!
Senior traffic officials agree that the recent Supreme Court order may be hard to enforce in such a large country. "It's therefore all the more important that motorists take responsibility for their safety," says Dr Pasricha. "In fact, there's a pressing need to educate people about the need to wear seat-belts."
Consumer activist M.R. Pai suggests that part of the revenue seat-belts bring to the exchequer should be spent on safety education. "Even if the government were to put aside a few rupees from the tax earned from every seat-belt sold, that could mean a good sum of money," he reckons. "That amount can be used to educate the public about the need to wear seat-belts."
"The government should make it mandatory for all car manufacturers to provide seat-belts on back seats too," says LPAI's Singh. That isn't a tall order. Take the case of Maruti-Suzuki, which sells more cars than any other company in India. With the exception of the Baleno, no Maruti-Suzuki car in India comes with back seat-belts. But the very same models the company exports to countries like England where safety laws are more stringent have them. (Rear seat-belts have been mandatory in England since 1987.)
For your part, remember that a serious accident can occur anywhere, anytime. So play safe. Always buckle up.
Wish all the Goanetters SAFE DRIVING!!!
Zinette Dxb/Siolim
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