This week, we’ve looked at some of the major causes for overabundance of traffic fatalities in South Carolina.
Now, we’re taking a deeper look into one of the most significant factors in preventing collisions from turning fatal, seatbelt usage.
“Somewhere between 40 to 50 percent of most people who lose their lives on South Carolina roads who had access to seatbelts chose not to wear them,” said South Carolina Highway Patrol Community Relations Officer Joel Hovis.
Hovis explained that roughly 93 percent of South Carolinians do actually wear their seatbelts, meaning only 7 percent of the population makes up that large portion of the state’s traffic fatalities.
He explained that seatbelts are important because they are designed to limit the number of impacts felt during a collision.
“When you are in a collision, there are actually three collisions that occur,” Hovis said. “The first collision is your car versus whatever you strike. The second collision is your body, because you’re not seat belted, against something in your car, whether it be your steering wheel or windshield, or maybe you might be ejected. Then the third collision is your internal organs versus your endoskeleton system. And those things constitute a recipe for a fatality if you’re not seat belted when you’re traveling down the highway.”
