 There's a war going on the battleground is the highway the local streets The two-minute drive to the grocery to leisurely 20 miles an hour. The casualties are in the thousands The cost is in the billions and the enemy the enemy is us It's it's it's awkward it's uncomfortable to lock in a seatbelt every time you move in and out of an automobile I know people who have been in accidents if they were wearing their seatbelt They would have been in a lot of trouble because they wouldn't have been able to get out On a short trip like that. I think I'm safe without seatbelts Because they annoy me to the strap cuts and bothers me when I move around I can't get into my pockets to pay tolls Just laziness seatbelts nuisance or necessity Most people say they're necessary for the other guy But not for them people just don't think that anything's gonna happen to them They say well the you know the other guys a bad driver, but we don't control accidents If you don't wear a seatbelt it doesn't matter where you're a good driver a bad driver You're still gonna go flying through that windshield the emergency crews that pick us up the doctors who patch us up Know that seatbelt save lives, but only about 15% of us listen and buckle up I myself spent many years driving around and not wearing a seatbelt But I think it only takes a few visits to this place To change your attitude and your views and become a highly motivated individual for seatbelts We can tell who comes in with a seatbelt and who doesn't the person who comes in without a seatbelt It's got a laceration of the head. They may have a broken bone. They may have blood on the brain They may have an injury to the bones about the head and neck We just don't see that in people who wear seatbelts eighty five percent of us don't wear seatbelts regularly So thousands of us suffer the consequences in a splitter of time the good times are gone as much as possible Self-sufficient you direct were a football star in the Air Force Academy You were heading toward a brilliant military career. I don't I don't see it see it ever in my life To achieve all those fast wonderful things ever again, but they were good why they lasted Some victims don't even remember the crash others remember the loneliness of waiting for rescue the hospital Procedures day by day and the long voyage home. They put a vest on you and they put with two bars go up and they wrap a Metal rim around your head and they put screws into your head so your head can't move So it sort of held in a stale position painful. Yes tragic. Yes But the private hell the private pain has become a staggering public burden 137 deaths each day 44,000 each year and 2 million suffer serious injuries and their lives may never be the same Most of the victims weren't wearing seatbelts a pound of fabric and metal Could have doubled their chances for living Could have spared their face and teeth and spinal cord and brain and wave life Only 15 percent of us wear our seatbelts regularly. Why? Many people fear that the seatbelt traps them so they refuse to wear them The vice president responsible for Dupont's extensive employee safety program doesn't buy that argument If I'm in an accident, I want to be maintained consciousness and that belt enables me to maintain consciousness I'm not going to be trapped in a car. I want to be a if I'm there I want to be able to get unbuckle that belt and get out if I don't have a belt on I'm unconscious I can't move some of us say that the belt is loose How can it protect us they catch? They feel loose and depends on the type of seatbelt system Restraint system you have but they catch they're designed to catch there are endless excuses and they are deadly Why won't we wear seatbelts the best guess is a mixture of fatalism and optimism and a very American insistence That wearing and not wearing seatbelts is a private decision But when that private decision becomes a public burden, do we have a right to pass mandatory seatbelt laws? Can you be forced by law to protect yourself? The freedom of not wearing seatbelts costs a fortune Part of the price is horrible pain. The other part is economic burden society pays the bill we pay you pay You demand that a fire rescue or that a paramedic system or that the ambulances be available to come and get you They're taken away from someone else your rush to the hospital where we invest time and energy of nurses doctors The rest of our team we may treat you in the hospital with x-rays electrocardiogram blood You fill up an intensive care bed. You're in a rehabilitation unit. We're caring for you for thousands upon thousands of dollars 57 billion dollars a year Fatalities injuries property damage seven billion dollars in insurance costs the victims don't carry that we do Emergency services legal costs Medicare Medicaid aid to children the financial crunches endless The crash is only the beginning what happens is is you go forward and that forward force brings your face and head Right through the windshield through and smashing into steering wheel through the windshield lifting your body right through it The brain is twisted inside the head fibers within the substance of the brain are torn the brain is Struck against the inside of the skull which ordinarily is there to protect it But which now injures it all of the fibers that reach the arm our arms our legs the rest of our body Are channeled into a spinal cord that isn't any larger than my index finger and it runs down this column There aren't any spare parts parts of the skin are missing the bones of the face are broken in multiple points and We can never in this situation Restore the face to the appearance it was before the accident with this private pain It seems cruel to examine the public burden, but we have to the average injury $7,000 which an individual might be able to handle but brain damage and spinal cord injuries can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars Institutional care can add more hundreds of thousands of dollars How many of us can handle those bills the results of a bad car accident with a spinal cord injury with? Rehabilitation with basic care multiple operations multiple interventions orthopedists neurosurgeons physical therapists rehabilitation and care can be Half a million dollars and more after a certain amount the insurance runs out and then the federal government has to take over Where's the federal government get the money to get it from your taxes? It's a long hard expensive road back from the moment of impact of some kind of life The first stage is kind of shock and disbelief. It's not happening Or it's not for real okay, or if it's happening It's not really happening to me and what I'm worried about the time is how I'd be able to keep my appointment for next Tuesday For them to imagine being able to transfer themselves from a bed to a wheelchair seems light years away Something like dressing themselves if brushing their teeth these kinds of tasks can be very difficult. I was involved in the drama club and extracurricular activities and I was doing everything. Yes, the awareness of going home leads to ones realizing This is the way it may be. I'm not just in a hospital here where I'm going to get all better And when I go home everything's going to be fine. I'm going to be home with this Tenaciousness yes, I think that's it brought me in this far And beyond the human cost there's an economic impact that affects us all How can you possibly calculate the cost of that salesman who isn't out taking care of his customers who isn't out selling his product? There is no way it is the numbers keep growing and growing your insurance course may well go up to over a million dollars. I Don't know if you would have that kind of policy or not But someone's gonna be paying for that let no one tell you that they are not a burden on society Untold millions of dollars have to be spent in order to maintain this and then that person is not capable of fulfilling his own Self-actualizing his own potentials as well as contributing something to that society It's a crime in accidents. There were no guarantees, but a seat belt can change the odds in your favor Unfortunately, there are thousands of case studies like this Both vehicles were compacts They were both moving at 45 miles an hour The driver with the seat belt on unbuckled and walked away No time off no medical costs The driver without the seat belt was thrown out of the car She suffered a ruptured spleen fractured pelvis and head injuries Time off work two years so far medical costs $27,700 and still rising ad rehabilitation continued salary indirect employer costs total to date over $86,000 and still rising and she'll never work at her job again But we know that seat belts are effective because we can compare in societies That have mandated the use of seat-based seat belts by legislation more than 30 countries of mandatory seat belt laws and they work Great Britain Usage went from 40% to 90% Trauma cases dropped by one-third the savings will be about 300 million dollars a year Canada the laws enacted usage goes up sharply hospital admissions in Ontario dropped 40% Australia Facial injuries were immediately reduced by 50% New York passes the first seat belt law in this country on the first day a driver slammed into a light pole smashed through a fence incredible sight just watching my life pass in front of me and Luckily luckily I'm here because I had my seat belt on it was January 1st The first day is a new seat belt line for some reason or other. I had my seat belt on I felt there was The time it was time. I think that New York State's recent Institution of compulsory seat belt wearing is is the most progressive piece of legislation Produced in a long time 68% of the people say they want a law and they want it enforced you hear an argument that people say We don't have a right to make me wear a seat belt because it only affects me Well, if you stop and think a minute it not only affects the individual it affects their family It affects their neighbors it affects the whole country because of the tremendous cost and who's paying that cost I'm not going to get into the issue whether this is an infringement upon one's constitutional rights or not I don't know that all I know is that wearing seat belts saves lives airbags will also save lives particularly and head-on collisions Combined with seat belts who get really superior protection But airbags are only installed in new cars And it will take 15 years of new car production to get them in every car on the road. We need protection now What we'd like to see is a good seat belt law where people are buckling up Every time they get in a car and with proper research proper design a good airbag to protect you in that Real head-on frontal collision. I think it's it's gonna it's gonna save lives They did a commercial on it with the egg, you know the egg was fine when it was tied down Well, they didn't have the egg tied down Not only will seat belts save lives not only will seat belts reduce these senseless injuries Seat belts will save us billions and billions of dollars But only if we use them 85% of all Americans don't wear them regularly, but they will wear them if it's the law pass the law today and We'll start easing the private pain and the public burden delay just one day and it'll cost us 137 more lives Delay one more day and 13,000 more of us are injured each day We delay costs us hundreds of millions of dollars The facts are horrible the issue is simple. Do we have a right to find people for not wearing their seat belts? Do we have a right not to? you