Were you ever involved in a car accident? please vote!

amother

Mauve

Thu, Jan 24 2019, 2:03 pm

I was in a rollover, when our minivan tipped over on the highway. It was the scariest thing I have ever experienced! We were six in the van, and we are all walking seatbelt advertisements!. B”H, we all went home that night, but I still remember telling my son to check if Bubby and Zaidy’s seatbelts were closed correctly, and I shudder to think of what might have happened if there had been an unrestrained passenger in the car.

It was a beautiful day, good visibility, straight highway, and we had a blowout on a front tire, which sent the van fishtailing across 3 lanes, tipping over and spinning around on its side, before finally coming to rest on its side in the middle of the highway. We still make a bracha (many years later) whenever we pass that spot on the highway.

We were always pretty conscientious about car seats and seatbelts before that, but at this point, I have.zero tolerance for unrestrained passengers. I will not give a ride to a child without a car seat or booster seat. I will not squeeze in an extra passenger, if there is no seatbelt. And I have instructed my children, that if they are ever offered a ride without a seatbelt with the assurance that their mother is OK with it - they should know that it is not true, and I will come special to pick them up (even 100 miles), rather than have them travel without proper safety restraints.

Obviously HaShem runs the world, and nobody dies by accident, but given the knowledge that we have today, car seats and seatbelts constitute normal hishtadlus and a fulfillment of “v’nishmartem me’od es nafshosechem.”

amother

Red

Thu, Jan 24 2019, 3:14 pm

I was in a car accident with a few kids in the car. The children in car seats with 5 point harness were perfect. The ones with regular seat belts were unfortunately wearing the lap part and had slid the chest part behind them. Those children got black and blue marks on the center of their forehead from hitting the seat in front of them. They would have definitely gotten hurt much worse without a seat belt at all.

amother

Amethyst

Thu, Jan 24 2019, 6:21 pm

sirel wrote:

I had a pretty vehement argument with someone today.

She claims that all the buckling up, booster seats, extreme car safety rules are overdone and are only necessary for car accidents that result in injury, which is unlikely to happen.
especially in low speed areas, like in the city.

I tried to tell her that car accidents are more common than she thinks.but whatever.

But whatever- your friend is an idiot.
Here's something you might want to do with her. Get into the driver's seat of your car and buckle yourself in. Take your friend along for a ride buckled into the seat behind you. Put your pocketbook or a bag of groceries on the front passenger seat and don't buckle in the bag. Find a quiet street and preferably take this trip when it's light outside. Get up to a normal speed, somewhere around 30 mph. Look in your rear view mirror and make sure there's no one behind you. Slam on the brakes. Watch what happens to the bag on the front seat. Now imagine what would have happened if the bag was a person. A child. If there had been impact between you and a tree or another car. Imagine what would have happened if you had been driving 40 or over 50 mph.