Gorski Consulting does not dispute most of the message sent in an OPP post on X (Twitter) today with respect to the importance and effectiveness of seat-belt use in a serious collision. However the post also sends some misinformation.
The post was sent by an anonymous representative from the OPP North East Region. It correctly makes note that Ontario’s seat-belt law is approaching its 51st year and that seat-belts have saved numerous lives while reducing the severity of countless injuries. The problem lies with a short phrase in that post as reposted below:
“Did you know? ยท During a collision, being thrown into a rapidly opening frontal air bag when you are not wearing a seatbelt can carry enough force to seriously injure or even kill you.”
This information is wrong and not necessarily innocuous. A vehicle occupant is not thrown into a rapidly expanding air bag because they are not wearing a seatbelt. A properly functioning air bag deploys before there is movement of the occupant with respect to the vehicle interior. Normally an occupant begins motion with respect to the vehicle interior at about 60 milliseconds after the commencement of a collision. A properly functioning frontal air bag deploys before that time. In newer vehicles the severity with which the air bag deploys depends on whether a seatbelt is worn. This because a full deployment may not be necessary if the occupant is already seat-belt restrained. But unrestrained occupants are not thrown toward a deploying air bag just because they are not wearing a seat-belt.
On a number of occasions I have explained the workings/ benefits of seat-belts in previous articles posted on this Gorski Consulting website. But a refresher appears to be needed.
A primary benefit of seat-belts is that, when they are located properly against the occupant’s body, and they are pressed tightly against the body, the occupant will begin to ride down the collision sooner than if a seat-belt is not worn. Why is that important? Because the earlier that you begin to ride down the collision the greater benefit because the greatest kinetic energy available to be dissipated is at the earliest portion of the collision pulse. When you wear your seatbelt tightly you become a “part of the vehicle structure”, in a sense. And when the vehicle structure begins to “decelerate” you also begin to “decelerate” almost at the same time as the vehicle structure. So part of your ride down occurs during “The First Collision”. In “The Second Collision” your body will eventually move into contact with the vehicle interior. But, by that time, your body will have been slowed to the point where the contact with the interior is not as severe.
But when you do not wear a seat-belt, or if you wear it loosely, you may make contact with the vehicle interior without being “decelerated” at all. So the vehicle could come to a full stop, essentially, and then your body will come crashing into contact at the initial velocity at which you were travelling. That is a bad outcome.
And the second part of this issue is that seat-belts need to be placed over the proper portions of the occupant’s body or they can become dangerous, sometimes as dangerous as not wearing a seat-belt at all. So the torso (shoulder) belt must be worn so that it crosses over the collar bone (clavicle). And the lap belt must be worn below the upper pelvic bone (illiac crest) and not over the unprotected abdomen. The positioning of the lap belt is extremely important.
There have been many instances of “Out-Of-Position” (or OOP) occupants who come to be positioned too close to the air bag before it is deployed. That is a very dangerous result and this is what the OPP should have noted. This is the primary mechanism by which persons sustain serious and fatal injuries from air bags. But this has nothing to do with whether someone is wearing a seatbelt because a person can be OOP regardless of seat-belt use.
Air bags were depowered beginning in 1998. Before that date occupants were being used as experimental fatality dummies because air bags were introduced before a proper assessment was made of their safety. The danger of deploying air bags has not been fully diminished and this is where police are part of the problem from two sources. In one instance many members of the police community have very little training to understand when an injury or death occurs that should not occur. This is apparent in many of the news media reports where persons have been killed in unusual circumstances yet police appear to do nothing. Although this is partly a lack of understanding it is also partly because the bias that police possess in their investigations and this is the second source of the police problem.
It is the purpose of police to lay charges against drivers that they believe are guilty of a certain offence. As part of that bias complications that could compromise those charges are withheld from further inquiry whenever possible. So if an impaired driver is charged police do not want it to be revealed that an additional factor, such as a roadway or vehicle safety issue, had also contributed to the collision consequence. In such unfortunate circumstances safety problems that ought to be revealed and corrected are left unidentified.
So the OPP misinformation in their posting is not necessarily innocuous because it demonstrates that, in many instances, police do not understand when a safety component fails to protect an occupant or they have reason to ignore it.
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