What does test data on seatbelt use and injuries show?
Industry statistics from NHTSA say that drivers who wear their seatbelts are nearly twice as likely to survive an accident. At IMMI, testing is a critical part of the development process for all of LifeGuard products. We have a crash test facility on our campus, called CAPE (the Center for Advanced Product Evaluation), where we do barrier testing, dynamic sled testing and rollover testing for fire apparatus. The video footage we collect during these tests shows us what happens to firefighters who aren’t belted in rollovers and frontal impacts. In a frontal collision at 30 mph, an unbelted person is launched forward at 30 mph and hits the windshield at that same speed. This impact is equivalent to a person falling to the ground from the top of a 3-story building. Another danger unbelted occupants face is ejection. In a rollover, unbelted occupants fly across the cab, sometimes into other passengers, and a passenger who is ejected is four times as likely to be fatally injured. What we’ve
