Importance of wearing seat belt and its laws

Posted by Joseph Franks on March 20th, 2020

While the number of deaths and injuries rising from car accidents has significantly reduced over the years, there are still thousands of people who lose their lives every year. In the past cases, the leading cause of road accidents was poor vehicle safety features, but that’s not the case anymore. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) rules, half the people who die from road accidents each year don’t have any safety restraints at the time of the accident. To put it in record, the number of reported deaths from motor vehicle accidents in the year 2018 was 33,654. Out of these deaths 14,990 lives could have been saved by just wearing seat belts. And to claim damages and injuries you faced due to someone else negligence, make sure you contact Personal Injury Lawyer Davie, FL.

Laws on Wearing Seat Belts

Like every state, Florida has comprehensive seat belt safety laws geared towards defending the lives of drivers and their passengers in case of collisions. Among the legal necessities is that all persons aged 15 and above must wear a seat belt whenever they’re in a moving vehicle. Other provision states that all children, basically 17 and under it, have to either be secured with a seat belt or the child car safety seat whenever they are in a moving vehicle.

Even so, there are a few exemptions to the law that are worth noting. For one, people who cannot wear seat belts (due to medical reasons) are exempted from doing so, as long as they present a statement from their doctor. Conditional exceptions are also extended to people who perform jobs that need frequent alighting and boarding of vehicles. These contain delivery workers, the meter readers and U.S. postal service personnel.

Penalties for Not Wearing A Seat Belt

Though seat belt laws have been in place for quite a long time, they have not been implemented as they should have. Nevertheless, with more eyes looking towards seat belt security as a way of saving lives on the road, you can expect more police checks and citations. According to the laws, the responsibility of making sure every traveller is buckled up lies with the driver. Likewise, parents or in their absence, other adults in the car are responsible for guaranteeing that all kids are properly restrained. Failure to comply with these provisions will attract a misdemeanor charge that is punishable with a fine of up to 0. Further, parents who fail to fasten their children while driving may be reported to the Florida Department of Children and Families for negligence.

How Seat Belts Prevent Injuries

Statistics show that motor vehicle accidents are the number one killer for people below the age of 34. One common cause of death in car crashes is traumatic brain injury, which typically occurs when the head forcefully hits the dashboard, windshield, or vehicle body. Wearing a seat belt prevents your body from moving too much or getting ejected from the car during a crash, which in turn helps to minimize potential trauma injuries and concussions. Furthermore, people with seat belts are likely to survive rollover accidents as compared to those who were not appropriately buckled up. As such it is important to make sure that the car you are driving or riding on has functional seat belts and that you carry and use a child passenger safety seat whenever you are traveling with your children.