This is a report on the importance of using a saftey belt. I handed this in for my health class and rceived a 100.

Essay by rackelHigh School, 11th gradeA+, January 2004

download word file, 2 pages 4.6 2 reviews

Safety Belt Report

Seat belts and child safety seats help prevent injury five different ways. By: Preventing ejection, shifting crash forces to the strongest parts of the body's structure, spreading forces over a wide area of the body, allowing the body to slow down gradually, and Protecting the head and spinal cord. Safety belts are the most effective means of saving lives and reducing serious injuries in traffic crashes. They're also the law. In most states, drivers and occupants of vehicles are subject to a fine for not wearing their seat belts.

Seat belts save an estimated 9,500 lives in America each year. Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death to children in America. And each year in the U.S., approximately 1,800 children ages 14 and under are killed as occupants in motor vehicles and more than 280,000 are injured. Safety belts, airbags and proper child safety seats when used consistently and correctly, can significantly reduce the rate of injury in a crash.

The number of lives saved could be substantially increased if more people used safety belts.

Death from Motor Vehicle Accidents represents only the tip of the iceberg. Every 14 seconds someone is injured in an motor vehicle accident. Consider, for each death, 19 persons are hospitalized and an additional 300 have injuries requiring medical care. The costs of these treatments are enormous, averaging $17 billion in medical and emergency expenses (including productivity and property loss) yearly.

American businesses incur enormous costs as a result of accidents. On the job, they cost employers nearly $22,000 per crash, and $110,000 per injury, as a result of medical costs, lost productivity, and higher insurance premiums. Car wrecks for the year 1994 cost American businesses an estimated $55 billion. What does the average American business do...