Safety Belts

If you are not wearing a seat belt and you are injured, this may reduce the value of your personal injury claim/lawsuit. The insurance adjuster or defense attorney for driver who caused the accident may assert as an affirmative defense that not wearing a seat belt constitutes failure to mitigate damages. The driver and front seat passengers must wear seat belts. The seat belt law applies to passenger cars manufactured beginning with the 1968 model year, and trucks beginning with the 1972 model year. It is unlawful for any person to operate a vehicle in this state unless every passenger of the vehicle under the age of 18 is restrained by a safety belt or by a child restraint device, regardless of seating position.

If the passenger is 18 years of age or older and fails to wear a seat belt when required by law, the passenger will be charged with the violation.

The law exempts the following from the seat belt requirements:

• Any person certified by a physician as having a medical condition that causes the seat belt use to be inappropriate or dangerous.
• Employee of a newspaper home delivery service while delivering newspapers on home delivery routes.
• School buses.
• Buses used for transportation of persons for compensation.
• Farm equipment.
• Trucks of a net weight of more than 5,000 pounds.
• Motorcycle, moped or bicycle.

In a crash, you are far more likely to be killed if you are not wearing a safety belt. Wearing shoulder belts and lap belts make your chances of living through a crash twice as good.

In a crash, safety belts:

• Keep you from being thrown from the vehicle. The risk of death is five times greater if you are thrown from a vehicle in a crash.
• Keep you from being thrown against others in the vehicle.
• Keep the driver behind the wheel, where he or she can control the vehicle.
• Keep you from being thrown against parts of your vehicle, such as the steering wheel or windshield.

SAFETY BELTS SAVE LIVES!

Wear a lap belt around your hips, not your stomach. Fasten the belt snugly. Wear a shoulder belt only with a lap belt. Don't just use your safety belt for long trips or high-speed highways. More than half of the crashes that cause injury or death happen at speeds less than 40 MPH and within 25 miles from home.