Lives lost for the same preventable reason

I have always worn a seatbelt, but when I first started driving, cars did not yet have shoulder harnesses. I have been saved by serious injury by my seatbelt, and a shoulder harness helps significantly more.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/opinion/ct-lns-rutter-buckle-up-st-0527-20150526-story.html

By David Rutter
May 26, 2015

Reeve Mathew was 10. John Forbes Nash Jr. was 86.

One was a bright child from Gurnee. The other was a famed Nobel Prize winning mathematician.

They shared nothing obvious in life except for the manner in which their lives ended Saturday.

They were killed in car crashes in which the drivers of vehicles in which they were passengers lost control and crashed into medians on turnpikes. Mathew died on I-94. Nash died in New Jersey.

Then they were ejected from their cars. The impact of their bodies hurtling from the vehicle, and crashing into a protective barrier near the roadside killed them.

One was a child on his way to church. Another was the Princeton mathematician whose strange, odd, but fulfilling life was profiled in the movie "A Beautiful Mind." Russell Crowe played Nash in the movie.

What Reeve and Nash also shared was the way in which they could have survived the crash had they exercised the option.

They could have worn their seat belts, but police investigators said they did not.
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Nash's wife, Alicia, also perished Saturday for the same lack. She, too, was ejected from the backseat of a taxi as it sped down the New Jersey Turnpike on Saturday before careening out of control and striking a median.

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Americans involved in motor vehicle crashes who didn't wear safety belts are an astounding 47 times more likely to die than those who did, a Federal Highway and Safety Administration study found.

The death rate for those wearing a seat belt in crashes was less than 1 in 2,000. But for those not secured, the rate was almost 22 in 1,000 — 46.9 times higher than those buckled up. Those not wearing belts were also 10 times more likely to suffer an incapacitating injury.

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Of course, the lack of seat belts also causes $50 billion in medical costs for those who survive.

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