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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Why does it seem that not wearing your seat belt is all the rage?


MrRalphMan

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Driving standards are definitely getting worse and I reckon it's down to the police being obsessed with the easy, speeding/mobile phone/seat belt earner nicks and ignore other demeanours unless someone has been injured.

 

Seriously? Even in a thread about not wearing seat belts you manage to blame the Police. They really can't do anything right for some people can they.

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I've been brought up to put one on as soon as I get In a car, much like Homer said to the point you don't even think about it.

 

However, I know someone who was in an accident, and would have been killed IF he had been wearing one! A huge fence post came through the windscreen and impaled the drivers seat! Luckily he had been thrown to the side of it!

 

I imagine that is more exception than rule..!!

 

I would think that if the fines were silly high for not wearing a seat belt or talking on your mobile it would bring things to a complete halt. Imagine getting fined a grand for using your phone?

 

H.

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Well let's face it, make a point of counting the number of vehicles with failed headlamp bulbs on your next dark journey and it will be obvious what their priorities are.

 

I have played that game.

 

France averages around 20%, yet in Thailand virtually zero and I am sad to admit that Brits are fast catching up with the frogwits.

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I haven't noticed, I feel really odd without the seatbelt on though.

 

Maybe the Police have given in to everyones demands and gone to deal with 'real crimes'.

 

Possible, i cant help but notice the lack of indicators, speeding in 30 zones, especially in the rain, i cant undertand some people. Really makes me feel uneasy with tailgaters and people who drive dangerously.

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You'd have to be pretty unlucky to be killed by the unbelted driver of another car. Maybe if you were driving some lightly screened old classic or something.

I dod once witness someone coming through their windscreen as I stood at the side of the road watching the chaos after a truck dropped its trailer blocking a junction. (Dartford types will know it as the Princes Road / Green St Green Road junction, up by the Downs). While using the garage forecourt as a short cut, 3 cars went head-on and a woman passenger came through her screen then slumped back into her car again. It all seemed in slo-mo but I clearly remember her face starting to leak red all over. Nasty business, and it wasn't that high speed a crash. A seatbelt would have caused her nowt but bruising.

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You're probably right there Chris. I like much of my generation were brought up during the "clunk click" age and for everyone I know it's absolutely natural to belt up when getting into a car. I don't even think about doing it, it's as natural as checking it's in neutral and turning the key. It feels incredibly wierd driving a car without the belt on, "uncomfortable" even. I even find myself doing it when moving cars on/off the driveway!

 

I'm exactly the same Darryl, it's a natural thing for me too.

 

I've started driving off once or twice and not had my belt on and it just felt, well...wrong and uncomfortable and unsafe. So, on the belt went :D

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I am terrible on short journeys but I hardly get over 20mph round here & in traffic? It is just stop & start, so if it is a short journey I have to do in town then I don't bother. Though that is a little difficult in the Type R as it constantly beeps at you til you put it on!

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I remember my stepdad kicking up hell when he had to start wearing a seat belt. how old am i?

 

I remember all that, people saying it was better to be thrown clear..seriously? They thought it would be safer to be hurled out of a crashing car, and of course there was always someone who knew someone who's friend's friend had been killed when their seatbelt prevented them from getting out of a burning or sinking car.

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I am terrible on short journeys but I hardly get over 20mph round here & in traffic? It is just stop & start, so if it is a short journey I have to do in town then I don't bother. Though that is a little difficult in the Type R as it constantly beeps at you til you put it on!

 

Its not how fast you are going, its how quickly you decelerate (or how quickly you don't decerlerate when your car does).

 

Try deliberatley running into a stationary object at 20mph and see whether it changes your opinion :)

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I have to hang my head in shame, I'm guilty of driving without belt when using my Landcruiser. I'm a bus driver so I do not wear belt when on bus, that's why I tend to forget when driving big 4x4.

I'm always putting belt on when driving small or sports cars for some reason tho, I think it have something to do with how far away from ground I am :D

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Dorset Police are part of the "No excuses" campaign and in a day....

 

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/9097885.Nearly_200_careless_motorists_caught_in_one_day_blitz/

 

By 3pm 56 drivers had been detected for failing to belt up; 53 opted to attend a seat belt course at Bournemouth’s Streetwise centre.

 

Twenty motorists were caught speeding and 14 were observed using their mobile phones at the wheel. Five had no MOTs, one had no insurance and another had no licence leading to the seizure of two vehicles.

 

On a single road the A338

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I don't, I wish they'd stop taking us motorists for cash cows and get on with something a bit more important, like shifting "travellers", giving known trouble makers a hard time, and giving relatively honest citizens a "good time". I can't think of anything much more trivial in terms of illegality than not wearing a seat belt. Quite why freedom of choice was removed for this I don't know.

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I can't think of anything much more trivial in terms of illegality than not wearing a seat belt. Quite why freedom of choice was removed for this I don't know.

 

It's trivial in terms of legality just as much as it's trivial in terms of how much time it takes to belt up!

 

Also, people talking on mobiles deserve to crash and die, and people with no insurance or licence deserve to have their faces cut off.

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Its not how fast you are going, its how quickly you decelerate (or how quickly you don't decerlerate when your car does).

 

Try deliberatley running into a stationary object at 20mph and see whether it changes your opinion :)

I have done on my cycle, doesn't half hurt for a few days :D

 

My current car weighs pretty much nothing, and I can pretty much stop very quickly at 20mph, but I do understand what you are saying. Thing is we hardly get over 20mph when I pop out at rush hour in either direction. It's too built up for people to speed but I do take into account that it is generally not myself but other drivers you have to look out for.

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It's trivial in terms of legality just as much as it's trivial in terms of how much time it takes to belt up!Also, people talking on mobiles deserve to crash and die, and people with no insurance or licence deserve to have their faces cut off.
I'd hate to think what should happen to drunk drivers! :D
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I don't like being nannied, now I watch the news and pensioners are being cited as a high risk group for alcohol and drug abuse. Not being THAT far off pensionable age I am aghast at yet more meddling form think tanks that are no doubt currently emnbroiled on plans to make themselves look indespensable in these times of cuts, when, in reality, they are mere taxpayer funded quangos. A glass of red wine or half a pint of bitter a day is all I should take when 65 plus? You gotta' be kidding. The advocates of this looked and sounded as boring and as "jobsworthy"as you might expect. There's not one pensioner I know in my local that would deem it worth turning out for less than 3 pints a night. A good night would see that near doubled, on a regular basis. None look likely to drop dead anytime soon, and given a choice of abuse and a foreshortened old age, or boredom and near total abstinence, I am pretty sure what they'd decide.

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