http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/

The link above is a good site to browse.
I was looking through some of their safety reports. A national study by DOT says only 48 percent of all commercial vehicle drivers wear safety belts, while 79 percent of four-wheel drivers buckle up.

In 2002, more than half of the 588 truckers killed in crashes were not wearing safety belts.

A myth some believe is the size of their rig will protect them.

 

Kind of funny, and I know a lot of drivers are this way. I buckle up when in the truck, but usually do not when in a 4 wheeler.

Then again I might use the seat belt in the car more if they would install those clips that keep the belt a little loose so it does not cut into your neck.

 

Yeah how many supertruckers say that seatbelts will kill you. It's unreal.

Or the theory that if you hit water... you need to be unbelted to be able to get out.

Odds are you're going to be unconscious if you hit that water without a belt, thrown around your rig like a rag doll. That steering wheel doesn't have much give you know...

 

I wear my seat belt most of the time. If you don't want it to be tight, just use that yellow clamp and pull it out a bit. But if you pull it out to much it's like not even using the belt in the first place!

 

If you had seen what I have seen over my career in the fire service, you would change your mind about not wearing that seatbelt!!! It only takes two seconds to put on and you can adjust the tension on it so that it is comfortable. In my opion, two seconds is nothing to save my life!

 

Amen Bro. FFII/EMT myself. Mostly been Volunteer with some FT over the years. What especially hits home is when you respond to a scene with some victim you know. I live in a small community, so that happens more often than not.

 

What you saw in the fire service is probably the same thing I saw driving a tow truck for many years. Add to that, before there was a seatbelt law I got into an accident and went face first into the steering column at 40mph (which explains my dashingly good looks :lol: )

I used to hear this kind of disregard about wearing a seatbelt because someone was driving a tank like a Cadillac. Yet what they didnt realize is that when you get into an accident in a big ol car or truck, YOU absorb the impact of the accident. You might as well attach yourself to the front bumper.

Now I'm guilty of driving through a dropyard without a seatbelt on , so I raise my hand in guilt. But before I leave the yard to get out in traffic, the seatbelt is buckled, and stays that way til I stop.

 

Its a habit for me to slip mine on all the time. I do take mine off when I pull in a truckstop because I have to look around or jump out, but thats about the only time you'll catch me without one.

A LOT of my helpers refuse to wear one on the way to a job, so i refuse to move the truck. I tell them my workman's comp won't cover them if the aren't wearing one if a wreck were to happen. I get attitude from them mostly.

All my friends make fun of me for wearing one in my car too, or if i get on a car and buckle up. I'll switch seats with someone to get in a seat with a working seatbelt :wink:

 

Just to play devil's advocate... I had a nasty wreck in my truck before last. The fourwheeler came across four lanes to try to catch an exit at the last possible second, and I actually T-boned them, because they were heading due west on the northbound lane. (I didn't get a ticket. What they tried to pull defied all belief, and the cop decided I didn't have to be Superman that day, thankfully.)

I tore the ever loving crap out of that fourwheeler, but I didn't even break the little yellow clamp on my seatbelt loose, let alone trigger the inertial lock.

I think seatbelts in trucks are largely useless, but I wear them anyway, because it's an easy way to avoid a ticket.

In fourwheelers, OTOH, I'm alive today because of my seatbelt, and I have always worn them religiously, since my earliest days of driving.

 

Having been and EMT for 7 years also, I've seen plenty of bad accidents. But I hate seat belts, in my POV I never wear one. But in the truck I put it on and slide the shoulder belt behind my back because I hate the feeling of something on my chest. Hell even when I run in the demolition derby I only run a lap belt. If I'm gonna die or get seriously hurt it will happen with or with out a seat belt.