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104
Safety
belts
The warning light .
in the instrument cluster
lights up when the ignition is switched on as a
reminder to fasten the safety be lts. In addi-
tion, you will hear a warning tone for a certain
period of time.
Fasten your safety belt and make sure that
your passengers also properly put on their
safety belts .
A
WARNING
- Safety belts are the sing le most effective
means available to reduce the risk of se-
rious injury and death in automobile acci-
dents . For your protection and that of
your passengers, always correctly wear
safety belts when the vehicle is moving .
- Failure to pay attention to the warning
light that come on, could lead to person-
al injury.
Why safety
belts?
Frontal collisions and the law of physics
Frontal crashes create very strong forces far
people riding in vehicles.
Fig. 103 Unbelted occupa nts in a vehicle heading for a
wall
Fig. 104 The vehicle crashes into t he wall.
The physical principles are simple. Both the
vehicle and the passengers possess e nergy
which var ies with vehicle speed and body
weight. Engineers ca ll this energy "kinetic en-
ergy."
The hig her the speed of the vehicle and the
greater the vehicle's weight, the more energy
that has to be "absorbed" in the crash.
Vehicle speed is the most significant factor. If
the speed doubles from 15 to 30 mph (25 to
50 km/h), the energy increases 4 times!
Because the occupants in this ve hicle are not
using safety belts ~ fig. 103, they will keep
moving at the same speed the vehicle was
moving just before the crash, until someth ing
stops them - here, the wa ll ~ fig. 104.
The same principles apply to people sitting in
a vehicle that is involved in a frontal collision .
Even at city speeds of 20 to 30 mph (30 to 50
km/h), the forces acting on the body can
reach one ton (2,000 lbs, or 1,000 kg) or
more. At higher speeds, these forces are even
greater.
Peop le who do not use safety belts are also
not attached to their vehicle. In a frontal coll i-
s ion they will also keep moving forward at the
speed their veh icle was t ravell ing just before
the crash. Of course, the laws of physics don 't
just apply to frontal collisions, t hey determine
what happens in all kinds of accidents and col-
lisions .
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