Seatbelts

One of my co-teachers studied in the United States for a few months, so I asked her what she thought the strangest thing was. She quickly said she didn’t understand why people in the back seat wear  seatbelts. Since I asked her opinion I decided not to go on a diatribe about how seatbelts save lives.

Seatbelts are neither a legal matter nor popular in Korea. Babies sit on laps or crawl around the car as they please. Once I saw a car seat in the front; it was facing forward and the baby wasn’t strapped in. I’ve been in many cars where I fished the seatbelt out of the seat. Often in taxi’s they block the use of seatbelts by sealing the buckle with tape or tying back the belt. It’s one thing to choose not to wear a seatbelt, but to inhibit the use is mind boggling. Seatbelt use has been so ingrained in me that I feel really insecure when I’m not wearing one. 

There are arguments, particularly from those raised prior to “click it or ticket”, that seat belts should be a personal choice and that the government is infringing on individual rights to self determine how important safety is. It's a reasonable concern whenever government is suspected of going too far, but it also seems that it would have taken a long time to convince most people to wear seatbelts without a legal incentive. As a fully indoctrinated seatbelt wearer, I just can’t muster up the energy to protest this overstep of government authority. Perhaps this complacency paves the way for further government infringement on individual affairs, but what can I say? I like seatbelts, so I comfort myself with the belief that seatbelts are a public health issue and that auto accident fatalities are expensive.

I also found a few interesting statistics. According to the US Department of Transportation on p 142 of a report, the United States had 33,808 auto fatalities in 2009. Whereas the Education Institute of Transportation in Korea listed 342,233 fatalities in 2005 on p 2 of a report. Considering that Korea has a much smaller population, these numbers show a lot. There are many ways that I could illustrate with numbers, such as crashes per 100,000 people, percent of crashes with fatalities, percentage of fatalities wearing seatbelts, etc but I’m only a casual blogger. In short, wear your seatbelt!