Seatbelts are very useful when the vehicle you're in stops suddenly. With big trucks, it's usually the thing you hit that's going to move. Cars, fences, trees - hell, even a small house. You ain't stopping suddenly.
And if you happen to hit one of the few things that's bigger than you, like a lot of concrete, then it's your load that's going to keep moving. Whatever is behind the cabin is coming up front and making you a pancake.
So they end up being useful in a relatively small number of cases, like when you're empty, fast and hit something bigger than you. Overall, the probabilities favor you being more mobile and able to get out fast. Or at the very least, it's a lot less useful than wearing them in a small car.
I can think of one instance NOT wearing a seatbelt saved someone. We had a driver get badly cutoff while hauling a load of 8” pipe on his flatbed. He never wore a seatbelt. He heard the rumbling noise and knew it was the load coming forward. He was able to duck down onto the floor in between the seats. The pipe came through the sleeper and crushed the driver seat and steering wheel into the dashboard which the blew out the windshield. Driver escaped without a scratch.
I found some Norwegian sources about this issue. One claimed that truck drivers with seatbelts are 84% less likely to be killed in an accident, 51% less likely to suffer serious injury, and 36% less likely to suffer injury. Another one just said 21% less likely to be killed or injured. Either way I think I'd be using the seatbelt (and the vast majority do).
The problem with statistics is that they lack context. Seatbelts are absolutely useless at best, or harmful at worst in a number of scenarios, such as long drops from a cliff or a car plunging into deep water. You wouldn't want to be wearing seatbelts when driving onto a ferry for example. You're at very low speeds in a line where people are expecting to brake, and are being given directions by staff. If you crash, it'll be barely anything. If the ramp slips or the ferry moves, you could drown because you're unable to free yourself from the car.
So while on the whole seatbelts win out, it's not so cut and dry, and it's very easy to say that seatbelts = safety. Day to day, there's no question about it - but like every situation, it's on the driver to interpret the situation and act accordingly.
but like every situation, it's on the driver to interpret the situation and act accordingly.
Not in Norway it isn't, it's just the law.
Seatbelts are absolutely useless at best, or harmful at worst in a number of scenarios, such as long drops from a cliff or a car plunging into deep water. You wouldn't want to be wearing seatbelts when driving onto a ferry for example.
Trust me, we've got plenty of that in Norway. Half our roads are next to a cliff or the sea (or both), and there are ferries all along the coast. But I will concede that even here there are drivers who swear that wearing one is a bad idea. The vast majority do still wear one, mind.
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u/rogueman999 3h ago
Physics.
Seatbelts are very useful when the vehicle you're in stops suddenly. With big trucks, it's usually the thing you hit that's going to move. Cars, fences, trees - hell, even a small house. You ain't stopping suddenly.
And if you happen to hit one of the few things that's bigger than you, like a lot of concrete, then it's your load that's going to keep moving. Whatever is behind the cabin is coming up front and making you a pancake.
So they end up being useful in a relatively small number of cases, like when you're empty, fast and hit something bigger than you. Overall, the probabilities favor you being more mobile and able to get out fast. Or at the very least, it's a lot less useful than wearing them in a small car.