I can’t fathom why you’d ever want to drive or ride in a car without wearing a seatbelt. There is no situation in the world where it’s safer to be unbelted. Even if you’re the safest, most cautious driver on the planet, there’s no stopping a reckless driver from crossing into your lane or running a stop light and hitting you. In that case, wearing a seatbelt could mean the difference between a few bruises and a life-changing injury. It’s never worth the risk.
Yet, 9% of all front-seat occupants did not use their seatbelts last year, according to data obtained by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The number is even worse for back-seat passengers, where seatbelt use was just 80 percent in 2023.
Proof that seatbelts save lives is easy to find. From the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:
In 2023, 23,959 passenger vehicle occupants were killed. Nearly 50% of those killed were not buckled (based on known seat belt use).
Seat belts saved an estimated 14,955 lives and could have saved an additional 2,549 people if they had been wearing seat belts, in 2017 alone.
The NHTSA also points out that buckling up in the front seat reduces your risk of fatal injury by 45%, and chances of a moderate to critical injury by 50%. Despite years’ worth of overwhelming data like this, some automakers still make it too easy to disable the annoying chime that comes with driving without your seatbelt.
Ah Yes, That Chime
The installation of seatbelts became mandatory for all passenger cars in the United States in 1968, but it wasn’t until 1984 did the first state—New York—make the use of seatbelts in the front seats mandatory. By 1995, 48 other states had seatbelt usage laws in place. New Hampshire remains the only state in the Union not to have such a law.
The seatbelt-reminder chime for drivers wouldn’t become mandatory until 1972, when only 20% of drivers were actually wearing their belts. Eventually, the chime requirement moved to all front-seat passengers. And it wasn’t until 2024 when the NHTSA finalized a rule that will require automakers to have chimes for rear-seat occupants not wearing their belts, which is set to go into effect in 2027.
Anyone who’s ridden in a car without a seatbelt will know how annoying these chimes can be. Being bothersome is, of course, the whole point of the noise. It incentivizes occupants to buckle up so as to stop the noise from blaring through the speaker system. The majority of occupants simply buckle up, but as the data shows, there are still a fair number of people who decide not to.
I’m Shocked Automakers Still Have These Features Built-In
I bring all of this up because of a TikTok I came across a few days ago showing a procedure of how to disable the seatbelt-reminder chime in a brand-new Toyota GR86. I suspected it might involve some parts-swapping and ECU trickery, but no—being able to turn off the chime is a built-in feature on new Subaru-built cars like this ’86.
@pushingpistons You can do this with a similar process for other cars and sometimes it’s actually very useful. BUT PLEASE ALWAYS WEAR YOUR SEAT BELT WHEN DRIVING ????#carsoftiktokcontest ♬ original sound – pushing pistons
And it’s not like disabling the noise is some sort of impossibly tricky set of cheat-code button press patterns, either. All you have to do is put the car into accessory mode (press the start button twice without putting your foot on the brake) and buckle/unbuckle the belt 20 times within 30 seconds. That’s it! The chime goes away. It takes no time at all and requires no special skills, tools, or parts.
Subaru isn’t the only manufacturer that has a built-in way to disable the chime. Ford has a similar trick for its new vehicles that involves the same buckle/unbuckle trick. At least you have to put on the handbrake for this version. Here’s the full tutorial, ironically shared by a Ford dealership on Facebook:
Some later-model Toyotas have a trick too, where you can actually activate a secret menu in the gauge cluster to switch between having the chime on or off when the seatbelt isn’t buckled:
Stuff like this, where it takes under a minute to disable the sound without having to spend money on extra tools, feels wrong to see built into a new car. The above videos point out reasons you might want to disable the chime—if you’re wearing a five-point harness on a race track, if you’re driving down your driveway to your mailbox, if you’re driving at low speeds on a farm, or if you’re carrying something heavy in the passenger seat. While I understand not wanting to have the beep going during those times, I don’t think those excuses are strong enough.
If you really want to disable the alerts, there are simpler solutions, like those seatbelt-shaped clips that are basically buckles without the belt, designed to fit into the latch specifically to trick the car into thinking the seatbelt is buckled. You can also just pull the old trick of buckling the seat belt before you get in the car, then just sit on top of the belt. It’s kind of weird to see manufacturers programming this stuff into their cars to make it easier in the year 2025. Shouldn’t it be as hard as possible to disable a safety feature like this?
Automakers Should Go Even Further
Back in 1973, the NHTSA introduced a law that required all new cars to have a seatbelt interlock mechanism, requiring the driver’s and right-seat passenger’s seatbelts to be buckled before the car would start. Seeing as how around 20% of people wore their belts, this caused a bit of a stir. From History:
“An enormous political backlash ensued,” says Jerry Mashaw, professor emeritus at the Yale Law School and co-author of The Struggle for Auto Safety. “Congress received more letters from Americans complaining about [the interlock mechanism] than they did about Nixon’s ‘Saturday Night Massacre.’”
Congress responded swiftly in 1974 by killing the interlock mechanism and further mandating that the annoying buzzing sound that indicated an unlatched seat belt could only last eight seconds.
The NHTSA didn’t give up on seat belts, though. It passed a new rule in 1977 that put the ball squarely in the automakers’ court. Detroit had to install some kind of “passive restraint”—a system that worked automatically without driver intervention—that would protect a crash test dummy from damage when hitting a wall at 35 mph.
That new rule led to the infamous “automatic safety belts” of the late 1970s, which swiveled around the driver upon entry. These also upset buyers:
Consumers immediately began arguing that automatic seat belts were unsafe in a car fire, potentially trapping passengers in a burning car. Carmakers agreed to add a release latch, which drivers could easily disconnect, rendering the automatic belt ineffective.
As this back-and-forth was going on, Ronald Regan won the presidency in 1980, with one of his administration’s first moves being to rescind the NHTSA’s rules on passive restraints. That move proved fruitless, as insurance companies sued to keep the rules in place, winning in the Supreme Court. Elizabeth Dole, then Secretary of the Department of Transportation, formulated a compromise that could satisfy everyone:
Dole issued a rule in 1985 that required automakers to install driver’s side airbags in all new cars unless—and this is the kicker—two-thirds of the states passed mandatory seat belt laws by April 1, 1989. Dole’s rule was so politically adroit because it looked like a regulation, but was really a gift to the auto industry. Cars already had seat belts, so all Detroit had to do was convince states to pass mandatory seat belt laws and it was off the hook for installing expensive air bags or automatic belts.
Automakers weren’t able to convince enough states to sign on with seatbelt laws, so driver’s side airbags were made standard in 1989. Eventually, though, 49 states introduced some kind of seatbelt law. So in the end, everyone got their wish (except for the people who didn’t want to wear seatbelts, I guess).
I suspect that if a seatbelt interlocking mechanism law were introduced today, it would face far less pushback. It only requires a few lines of code, so it wouldn’t be expensive or difficult to implement. And with 91% of people in America already wearing seatbelts, the population that would be affected by the rule would be much smaller. Such a law would certainly save lives. It’s just a matter of getting the right people to get behind it. I know I would be.
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
I am pro seat belt here.
Almost always.
But Brian thousands if not millions have grown up in areas where the rivers and lakes freeze over in the winter time. I sure did.
And where lakes freeze people fish, camp, and race cars on that ice. For as long as my brain can remember.
Can assure you anyone who wears a belt on frozen water has a screw loose in the brain…
I had a 1994 Sentra with the automatic belts. I never minded it at all. I hear people complain about them, but I never found them annoying at all.
I very briefly had an ’89 Maxima with them and didn’t mind them either. My grandmother’s Tempo I did find annoying. I think it definitely came down to the height of the car’s roof and where they would finally stop at.
Some newer Chinese cars, like the Jaecoo J5 BEV I just test drove a few days ago, will engage the parking brake if youre unbuckled, although the car would happily go into Drive or Reverse, but wont release the parking brake, opening doors in Drive / Reverse would do the same.
A fair amount of inconvenience if youre just shuffling your car around a parking lot, and also does not allow the car to be pushed when its in the OFF position, making it un-parallel-park-able in some situations.
I’m always a little surprised that seat belts aren’t mandated to be in signal orange or similar, like you see in some school buses or trucks.
All these objections — that eight second chime is enough to remind the vast majority of people who want to be reminded if they forgot, and is over in eight seconds for the other 9% of you.
I’ve never forgotten to wear my seat belt but have still heard the chime due to the passenger sensor. Let’s not make it worse for the 91% because of the 9%.
I don’t wear a seat belt to pull cars into and out of the shop, but any time there’s a test drive I buckle the belt within sight of the building. Actually, I stop exactly where I am the instant I decide I need to leave the premises, buckle the belt, and proceed. I will likewise move a vehicle on the property (a pretty grand word for “acre in the suburbs”) but never off the property without it, and if I’m departing it’s always buckled before I get to the end of the driveway, no question.
The motorcycle, on the other hand… (Same rules except it’s helmet instead of seat belt. I don’t need a helmet to walk the bike from spot to spot)
You’re an idiot if you don’t wear your seatbelt on the road.
Now that we go that out of the way, there does need to be some common sense in the design around seatbelt safeties. A co-worker bought a truck to pull high fifth wheel, and he said that he couldn’t lean out the door when backing it up because it wouldn’t go into gear unless the seatbelt was latched. That seems a little too far.
I go down the road all time without a seatbelt. I don’t even think my motorcycle came with one
I may be able to do you one better. In my state a helmet is optional if you’re 18+. Please nobody tell our lawmakers that though it would suck to have to put a lid on when I take the scooter 2/3 of a mile to my in-laws house
I got hit on my motorcycle half a mile from my home when I was taking it to gas it up while my wife was getting ready to go for a ride. If I had not worn my helmet, my face would have been scraped off as I rolled and slid down the road. Of course it’s your choice and, but the risk may not be as negligible as you think.
Why have the disabler? Because someone might move cars around a parking lot frequently. I have a 1/4 mile driveway lined with the wussiest trees nature ever allowed to live and they’re always dropping branches anytime a deer so much as farts as it passes underneath, so I drive without a seatbelt in my f’n driveway so I can stop and throw them into the woods as I go, which means removing the seatbelt. Also, when I stop at the mailbox, the f’n seatbelt grabs like a horny ICE agent so that I can’t even lean to open the f’n box no matter how gentle the stop, nor does it relax easily like seatbelts of old because the modern world is engineered by wusses for wusses like the shittiest reincarnations of my damn trees. Thankfully, the GR86 makes it easy to permanently disable the worthless chime because it was one of the few things apparently not designed for cowards (though they now force that Eyesight BS in even the manual models). If people aren’t going to wear a belt, they won’t wear it. An interlock? They’ll sit on the belt or stick an extra end into the receiver, those workarounds popped in to my head without prompt. Also, we are far too obsessed with safety that we need to force annoying reminders upon people like a helicopter parent who raises a helpless kid—someone wants to roll the dice on the small chance that they’ll be in a big crash and die, let them! We have a shortage of people I didn’t hear about?
Next, those GD door open chimes can die. In my old cars, I’d just take out the sensor and tape off the contacts. If I don’t know my door is open, I deserve whatever consequences may come (force of the wind shuts it?).
We’re a society of busybody cowards.
1- So, while driving down the driveway slowly so that you can get in and out to clear branches, the engine continues running, in park, or neutral with the parking brake, right? So, if doing that, does the eight second timer reset itself every time you shift into gear?
2- The parking lot attendant argument is invalid in my view. That person a- would be used to ignoring the chimes (just part of the job), and b- would be in a shitload of trouble if they fucked with my car. Also c- in possibility of being liable if a customer gets in their car, doesn’t buckle, and is injured in an accident.
1-It beeped constantly once triggered and moving and at a changing volume, IIRC, though I disabled it early on. But I don’t know when or if I have to stop as it’s not a straight line, so I might drive up my driveway without anything at all and have to listen to it because some asshole says it makes me safe when that’s utter nonsense and he doesn’t actually GAF in the first place.
2-Not an argument for someone disabling them, it’s an argument against having the dumb BS in the first place. Nothing needs chimes unless it’s an actual emergency alert (I also don’t need to know that it might be slippery when the temp goes below 37 or that I’ve been driving more than 2 hours because, no shit) and if the creatures in charge feel they must accommodate the drooling slugs who they feel need these alerts to sort of function, then they should all be able to be defeated for everyone else. I have F’n ADHD and I even have the noises disabled on my microwave because I don’t forget the food, but if I did, so the F what? If I forget my food and it goes bad, that’s on me. Or if I want to grow random bacteria cultures in my GD kitchen, so be it, I don’t need mommy wiping my ass, either, like so many other people apparently do and welcome into their lives. I’m really starting to think the point of the annoyance and the increasing existence of these brain-jabs is not to push compliance of something like seatbelts under the pretense of concern (they DGAF), it’s a way to Pavlovian condition the slave-types who readily jump at the chance to be controlled and (combined with the inundation of brain rot from every other sphere) annoy the rest because an annoyed person is stressed and distracted, making them more readily controlled by fear media and rage bait while clear, focused thinking is made more difficult, so that the billionaires and sex trafficking party-throwers who own the politicians can more easily divide and conquer.
I’ve never needed them for myself. Why? Because I feel naked without my seatbelt when driving my car.
Now that I’ve driven with people who are pretty liberal with putting on their seatbelt I appreciate the reminder FOR THEM, NOT FOR ME.
Seat belt reminders? Who needs those? Does my car have them? I don’t know. I am not suicidal, so i put on my seat belt anyway. I don’t want to die just yet. How would I know if my car has seat belt reminders? How would anyone? (Sane,)
I also would never not wear the seatbelt, but I am glad the reminder chime is there for the odd event if say I enter with my arm(s) full, put something on the passenger seat or reach back to put it behind, and start the engine (breaking normal routine). I think it has happened at least once. Though I probably wouldn’t have gotten more than fifty feet without realizing anyway — like leaving the house without feeling your phone in your back pocket.
Took breaking a windshield with his face to convince my dad.
Maybe it takes that to convince others.
BTW he grew up where belts weren’t a thing. So some of this is hold over from that time.
My sister-in-law smashed her face up badly in a roll over crash and started wearing her seatbelt… Except she puts a bulldog clip on it so that it doesn’t retract and just hangs loosely.
It’s entirely possible that I just am ignorant on Hyundai, but I had a customer pull in with a Palisade towing a small enclosed trailer that they quietly asked me to back up to our shop because they were no good at it. So I get in, pop it in reverse, and.. nothing.. Acted like the park brake was on. I fumbled around for what felt like five minutes wondering what on Earth could be wrong with this brand-new rig when it occurred to me to try with the seatbelt on. It then worked fine..
Now again maybe there’s a way around that and I just don’t know it but holy cow was I tilted by the nanny-state hand holding
I’ve heard of such a feature for “teen driver” modes on some cars, although usually those have to be specifically turned on/configured, not by default.
Could be that yeah. I hope so anyway because having to put a seatbelt on just to move a trailer around a parking lot is ridiculous
No its not, it took me forever to figure out how to do it in my new F150. And for those of us who putz around campground & farms getting in and out its annoying as hell. And hey, I’ll take the risk that my crumple zones, airbags, ect will be enough to keep me alive if I hit something at 10 MPH.
What, common sense?!
Just unplug the sensor (if you are the smooth brain individual who doesn’t wear their belt).
Just early this year there was an accident where someone not wearing their belt got thrown from the car. The old folks (like my grandpa) would say that’s what you want. It’s safer. Nope. Car rolled on them. Dead. If they had their belt on they would be alive.
The answer to why some people won’t wear seatbelts lies within the following anecdote. Speaking to an older acquaintance who was teetering on the edge of a medical emergency and subsequently caught lying about taking prescribed medication that would’ve eliminated the issue, I was told, “I don’t trust anybody wearing a white coat!” Unsurprisingly, this same human being who is endowed with the right to vote also refuses to wear a seatbelt, but in a plot twist will pretend to wear it by hooking the shoulder part around the left arm while leaving the male part of the latch unbuckled and hanging uselessly by the door.
If one consults the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) one will find that this affliction is called “being an asshole.”
Wow, the level of conceit and hatred in this comment is remarkable. So there should be an intelligence test to be able to vote? Or maybe a poll tax? Or you need to own real property? That comment is way off base.
Also, what you describe affects only this elderly person – he did nothing mean, vengeful, or hurtful to anyone else. So that would not qualify as being “an asshole.”
To the contrary, denying someone their civil rights because you don’t think they are intelligent enough to vote, or because he doesn’t want to wear a seat belt (when he probably spent 50 plus years of his life when seat belt use in this country was optional and very uncommon) would fit my definition of “being an asshole”
Individual rights vs public order is an old and ongoing legal argument that likely won’t be solved in the comment section of an enthusiast website. Ad hominem attacks, however, seem to be a prevalent feature of social media that you have employed. I’ll refrain.
My opinion is that lying about taking one’s meds because one has embraced the idea that medical professionals are in collusion in an effort to cause harm or exert control, resulting in a great expenditure of money and effort by family, friends, and those same medical professionals to save one’s life, is not an assertion of an individual right, but rather the act of a selfish person with delusions of grandeur.
Likewise, an individual’s decision to refuse to wear a seatbelt when engaging in transportation along public roadways because of an assertion of an “individual right” incurs a cost on fellow citizens in various forms, mostly related to health care and insurance rates. There is also an emotional toll on those close to the person who has been more seriously injured than he/she would’ve been had he/she worn a seatbelt. It’s a selfish act that costs the greater community blood and money so laws were enacted to mitigate the effects.
In terms of the right to vote, assholes have it. I’ve made no argument against it, only made note of it.
I saw the title of this article and thought “Who the hell doesn’t wear seat belts all the time nowadays?” After reading the comments, I’m frankly astounded at the number of people who apparently are either divinely exempt from the laws of physics or are congenitally unable to move their arms from upper left to lower right before they start their cars.
Also, gotta love the evergreen “I’d rather defy the nanny state and be thrown clear [through the intact windshield or maybe the sunroof?] because I’m always unhooking my trailer underwater on the edge of a cliff with my 200-pound unrestrained dog and 100-pound unrestrained salesman’s sample case on the seat next to me, and the seatbelt chime harshes my delicate sensibilities.”
Having a way to disable it is better then some of the ways I’ve seen people disable them. Unplugging the sensor is one thing but all too often they will cut the wire. I was a little confused why Subaru would have that feature but the back seats have sensors and many things could probably set them off so not having it is less distracting them the thing going off.
I fully support encouraging people to buckle. I have a huge gripe about when those annoying relentless beeps cannot be silenced when I have something bulky and heavy in the passenger seat. I often find myself loading up the passenger seat with groceries, tools, etc. Then have to either contort myself or get all the way out to walk around and buckle in whatever is there. Has to be a better way.
This!
We had a Jetta that had the shoulder straps that attached to the door and were supposed to wrap you automatically. I guess they passed for “automatic” seat belts.
And, frankly, it wasn’t any big deal. Neither were the motorized belts that I remember from rentals and borrowed vehicles.
Not sure why they continue to inspire such rage today, but, whatever.
My mom had a ’90 Accord with them. 1 time out of 5, the belt mechanism would cause the retractor to lock up as if getting in a crash. So if you were to turn off the car and open the door, the belt would not only not get out of the way, it would lock tight in place so you couldn’t even lean forward. You had to either turn the car back on and off again, or manually remove the belt from the latch and then hook it up again. That’s my only experience with them and it was pretty awful.
Another design flaw from that car was having a power antenna that would come up when the stereo was turned on. 16 year old me took it through the car wash while listening to a cassette (not even the radio) and after that, the car had no antenna.
Yikes. Guess I’ve been fortunate.
Yeah, motorized belts were fine and a hell of a lot better than those “safe” early airbags that killed small women, not to mention being stuck with the hideous monstrosity that was any early airbag wheel.
Nanny State garbage. Motorcycles wouldn’t be legal if invented today. Let people buckle up or not, no need to pester them.
Fine, you pay for their medical care then.
OK, we already pay for junkies, the obese, people who do extreme sports or thrill events, and force people to stay alive long after they have no quality of life and no chance of improvement when care costs rise exponentially.
No argument with any of that, and if I had a great solution I could market for funding, worldwide, that kind of healthcare in a manner that was equitable and efficient I’d probably be a billionaire.
I guess hearing anyone crying about a “nanny state” just gets my Irish up, like I’ve gotta now deal with some Thatcher/Reagan hybrid monster I’d thought had been slaughtered.
And I’m not even Irish.
As someone who sees Reagan as high potential for the worst president in US history because of the political and economic dominoes he set up for others to knock down now, I can see how that reads, but it’s no longer about politicians or parties as those are just teams to divide us and distract us from the real enemy that is the billionaire tech parasites. As someone who doesn’t get wrapped up in sports, it’s gotten to the point where even people who are far off the political spectrum from Reagan are getting frustrated and worried, such is the scope and malignant ubiquitous invasiveness of all the tracking, recording, and prodding, both subtle and obvious, and it should be easy to see how they could be a part of a complete sphere of control with the goal of reordering the world purely for their benefit.
While seatbelt chimes are a minor thing on their own (unless you have PTSD-induced sensitivity to such noises that triggers instant rage, like I do) so that it can seem like a ridiculous strings-connecting-pushpins-corkboard leap to “The Man is going to enslave us all!”, they can still be seen as indicators of an overwhelming insidious plot to do that very thing even if I don’t personally believe such a plan would be quite that granular (nor would it need to be). My concern from this article is that people are not only blindly accepting being annoyed into submission “for ones’ own good” (because Big Brother cares so much about us), but defending it and decrying that these chimes are too easy to disable shows just how effective their tactics have been that so many frogs think the heating pot is a hot tub and are willing to hold the other frogs in with them (such an odd figurative expression—frogs aren’t actually that stupid).
I’m pro consequences for actions:
If you get injured without a seatbelt on you are not eligible for injury insurance coverage.
Maybe not even emergency medical care, but that’d be a little harder to justify.
To be clear, I’m saying no one should pay their medical bills except themselves.
I’d say they should be able to be deliberately disabled with just enough effort to prove they mean it. As long as there is a clear warning at the start then all is well. If someone wants to ignore or disable it at that point then so be it.
Too many times I’ve had to listen to that stupid chime or have warning lights all over the dash because something is tripping a sensor.
Seatbelt chimes should be disabled below ~10 mph, this would solve virtually all the (valid) edge cases for the driver mentioned in the comments.
Child seats and heavy stuff in seats with weight sensors is a more difficult problem.
I think Toyota does this, I can move a car around the driveway or up onto ramps without a chime.
I think the threshold needs to be a bit higher then, my van beeps when I’m taking my kids up to the bus stop in the morning
Remember when cars had a key slot in the dashboard where you could turn the passenger air bag on/off? Why not do that? We’ve already solved this problem. But apparently, it’s too dangerous to give people this option.
Well, that went away with physical keys.
The keys were just a means to accomplish a function. Something similar could be done, especially considering cars have massive infotainment screens with a million menus in them. Just have a password locked function for it.
The average car didn’t get those disable switches though, just big warning labels to put children in the back. The passenger airbag disable was mostly reserved for vehicles that had no good option for a back seat that a child seat could go – 2-seat roadsters, pickups that were regular cab or small back seats.
Those disable switches would put too much faith in people to flip to the airbag back on at times when it would make sense and goes against the notion of a “passive” restraint.
The fact every car didn’t have them is irrelevant.
And it’s like you’ve never heard of momentary switches, or features that turn themselves back on after the car is turned off.
My point is that this is a solvable problem…
It is relevant – I’m sure the switches were given consideration to other cars when passenger airbags were becoming standard, but airbags weren’t ever going to be considered something that could be user controlled like as they were mandated as a passive restraint.
I don’t disagree that a fix exists (and sheesh sorry I didn’t account for every form of implementation…). But seems like there’s enough edge case situations where someone deactivates for whatever reason, later picks up a passenger without shutting the car off or navigating into a screen to reactivate etc., followed by a situation with no airbag deployment when there should be, that a legal department is unlikely to find it worth the trouble to toss that in the terms and conditions.
“They weren’t meant to be user controlled… except for all the instances that they were user controlled.” Isn’t the argument you think it is.
I had a feeling you might mention that, so yes I am aware. Said instances (which weren’t typical family cars) went away as technology evolved, serving as a stopgap as technology evolved and passenger detection systems became more commonplace which they started to arrive pretty close to the passenger airbag mandate.
Anyway, it really isn’t that serious and the whole point of the initial discussion was the seatbelt chimes, not the airbags. I hope you have a good rest of your day, I will also do the same.
Focus RS could be had with an airbag switch in the glove box. Volvo V90s, and B8 Passats could be had with a switch on the side of the dashboard (only accessible with the passenger door open). These switches were also on things like Ford Explorers, various Hyundais, Land Rover Freelanders and lots of other things.
And the point of the whole discussion was that if we can override an airbag (and a seatbelt chime) with a keyed switch, why isn’t there a more common offering today.
Semi seat-belt related, but nothing makes me more uncomfortable than getting into a car with a 5 point harness, but not having a helmet + HANS device. I’m not sure if I’d feel more comfortable not being belted in at all. I’d bet a 3 point harness is safer with or without airbags in a front end collision.
Having had a fractured spine while wearing a 3-point belt and also having a degree in engineering I’d say the loads on your spine are lower when wearing a 5-point belt than a 3-point belt (assuming like for like helmet usage). The pivot point is higher (lower moment), and the unconstrained mass is much smaller. Vertebra are quite samey all the way up in terms of compressive wedge fractures.
OEMs seem to agree because I’ve driven a bunch of prototypes with 5 point belts but no cage, airbag or helmet requirement. If the lawyers approve it then someone somewhere has done the maths.
No. At my last racing school you were required to have a HANS device with a 4 or 5 point harness. Apparently, the 3 point allows enough motion to slowly decelerate your head to limit the loading on your spine. The 4 and 5 point are too stiff / rigid and the loads on your neck are excessive without the HANS device. Adding the mass of a helmet obviously makes the loads on your neck worse.
Well obviously they can’t recommend a HANS device on a three point belt.
Before the HANS device all race cars were still 4/5 point harnesses and not 3 point because 4/5 point is safer than 3.
My late dad always said, “never wear a seat belt, you want to be THROWN CLEAR”.
Yup, sure dad. Whatever you say.
People still believe that.
I’d love to hear someone talk through the physics of what they imagine happening. Assuming your windows are up, you’re first going to have to deal with being thrown through a pane of glass, maybe laminated. You also have to count on being thrown perfectly through an opening. Snag your foot on the A pillar as you self-eject and it’s all over. I know people can and do get ejected from cars, but that hides that fact that for every “success,” there are likely many, many times where the occupant just gets thrown into the interior.
In his defense, he was born in 1930, so he spent decades in cars before he ever saw a seat belt. He grew up idolizing WW2 daredevils, and they didn’t need no “cotton-pickin'” seat belts.
Of course, he also used to stack up old wood boards and drive his car up onto them so he could crawl under and work on it. The thought of doing that today makes my head spin.
Related: veratasium just did a good video on the razor thin line between confidence and stupidity. Worth a watch.
Disabling the chime in a Subaru makes some sense. Our Labrador can and will set it off. I don’t want to buckle the seat and set off the airbag should something happen.