I just got a letter for me to renew my license and in it penndot included a little peice of paper saying to avoid drinking and driving and driving aggressively. But it also said that buckling up saves lives. With this they included two statements:

"In Pennsylvaina alone, 1.490 people died in crashes on our highways in 2004... many because of aggressive driving and drunk driving."

"Buckling up saves lives. In 2004, 578 people killed in car crashes in Pennsylvania highways were not wearing a seatbelt."

Now if I look at those numbers it says to me that 578 people died without seatbelts and 912 died with seatbelts. Seems to me the numbers don't seem to agree with the statement that seatbelts save lives. I'm not trying to discourage the use of seatbelts because I put on my seatbelt in every car i drive or ride in, but it seems like penndot really did a poor job of displaying their facts with those two statements.

 

to whoever the editer is. Should have been something like 500+ lives mite have been saved if they has worn their seat belts

 

What you didn't conlcude was that out of that fatal crash data 39% of people who wore their seatbelt lived. If that figure doesn't convice you that seat belts can save your life in a "fatal type" accident, where you are out of control of the vehicle at a high rate of speed, than there is something wrong with you.

You also base your opinion without seeing any other accident data where people walked away because of seat belts. That data is countless and the percentages of injuries is low for those who wore seat belts. The safety data of seat belt wearers dwarfs fatality data. The data they provided you just says that if you are completelty worthless behind the wheel, and driving at the limits of the vehicle in an impared state of mind you could still have a 39% chance of living. That is pretty damn good.

You are smart in wearing yourseat belt.