Seat belts originated at Volvo, and fastening them is now one of the most basic concepts for safe driving.
But how big is the role of seat belts? THE IIHS (American Association for Highway Safety Insurance) gave us a sharp contrast through the test.
This test is mainly for the situation that the rear passengers do not wear seat belts, in order to make the results more informative, IIHS specially prepared two control groups of not wearing seat belts and wearing seat belts.
Due to the lack of more safety restraint systems in the rear of the vehicle itself, mainly the lack of forward-facing airbags, the body of the rear passenger is usually more likely to move forward, and the risk of injury is higher.
So why not wear a seat belt? Through the video, it can be clearly seen that when the rear row is not fastened by the seat belt, when the impact occurs, the rear dummy first directly hits the front seat and the dummy due to inertia, and then bounces onto the roof of the car, and finally the free fall generally smashes back into the car, the scene can be described as quite tragic.
For comparison, let's look at the control group in which the rear passengers wore seat belts.
A very obvious situation is that when the impact occurs, although the rear passengers are also subjected to inertia body movement forward, but throughout the impact process, the body can always be fixed in a very safe space, neither with the front seat, nor with the roof of the car, its safety risk is significantly reduced.
And most importantly, the IIHS has confirmed a situation through this crash test, that is, the rear seat is not wearing a seat belt, which not only endangers itself, but also significantly endangers other passengers.
According to IIHS data, exposure to occupants who are not wearing seat belts increases the risk of injury or death to other occupants in the car by 40%.
In a typical frontal collision, the risk of death for the front passenger increases by 137% if the rear passenger is not wearing a seat belt.
For example, in this crash test, it can also be clearly seen that the rear dummy is not constrained by the seat belt, due to the inertial high-speed forward movement, which greatly squeezes the safe living space of the front passengers. Not wearing a seat belt can be described as both harmful to oneself and harmful to others.
In fact, the role of seat belts is like this.
When a vehicle is traveling at high speed and collides with other vehicles or objects, the vehicle will suddenly slow down, but if the seat belt is not fastened, the occupants will continue to "move" at the same driving speed until they hit something inside the car that can slow them down.
However, by fixing people to the seat through seat belts, it prevents or reduces the injuries caused by secondary collisions, and wearing the seat belt correctly is also dispersing the kinetic energy of the collision to the stronger bone parts of the body, including the shoulders, chest cavity and pelvis.
In addition, seat belts can also prevent the occupants from being ejected from the outside of the car in the event of a collision, which also increases the risk of injury and death.
△ Jeep Wrangler has overturned in the IIHS small angle test
According to IIHS statistics, compared to occupants who wear seat belts and do not fly out of the vehicle, the mortality rate of occupants who are ejected in a non-rollover accident is twice that of the former, and the mortality rate of occupants who are ejected in a rollover accident is 4 times that of a non-ejected occupant...
Finally, in response to how to remind everyone to fasten their seat belts, IIHS also gave a simple safety evaluation rule, that is, "strong alarm".
Simply put, don't wear a seat belt and drop you until you fasten it.
IIHS believes that a good safety restraint warning system requires the vehicle to travel at a speed of 10km/h, and the system detects that when any passenger is not wearing a seat belt, the seat belt is not worn, and the reminder sign appears in the obvious position of the dashboard, roof panel or center console, accompanied by a warning sound.
If the front passenger is detected not wearing a seat belt, the warning sign and warning sound must last at least 90 seconds, the rear passenger does not wear a seat belt, the warning must last at least 60 seconds, and if the rear passenger who has previously worn the seat belt unfastens the seat belt, the warning must last at least 30 seconds.
However, here is a small question, since the harm of the rear passenger not wearing seat belts is obviously greater, shouldn't the rear seat belt tone be longer?
In short, according to this evaluation standard, IIHS tested the first batch of 26 models sold in North America, and the result was that the overall performance of most models was not very good, because it was a North American model we will not list them all.
However, according to the evaluation of IIHS, in addition to remembering to wear seat belts on the car, you can also try the safety restraint warning system on your car if it is qualified?