Always wear your seat belt. Always! It sounds like a complete no-brainer—you put it on and that’s it—but some people still have a hard time doing what’s asked of them. In this case, it was a 21-year-old and a 24-year-old who were acting like a pair of teenagers.
Redditor Funsy_bob shared a long and engaging story on the legendary r/ChoosingBeggars subreddit about how they decided to help out a friend and drive their sons to the airport. The redditor went out of their way to do this right before the start of the workday. However, things turned sour when the passengers refused to wear their seat belts.
Well, the redditor wasn’t having any of this. They weren’t about to risk everyone’s safety and their own license just to spare those two the minor ‘inconvenience’ of having to wear a gosh darn seat belt. Drama ensued and, eventually, the two ungrateful youths even managed to miss their important flight. All thanks to their stubbornness and love of arguing. Scroll down to read the full juicy story of how things went down.
Tim Weisberg, a spokesman for the California Office of Traffic Safety, was kind enough to answer a couple of my questions about wearing seat belts. "It’s not only the law, but a seat belt is your best defense in the event of a crash. It literally takes two seconds to buckle up and is a life saver," he told Bored Panda that this is the best way to convince someone who's being stubborn about not wearing a seat belt.
When redditor Funsy_bob agreed to give their family friend's sons a lift to the airport, they had no idea what they were in for
Image credits: Flickr (not the actual photo)
The two young adults refused to wear their seat belts and cause a lot of unnecessary drama. They were acting like total teenagers
Image credits: funsy_bob
I was curious to know what age group tends to have the most issues with wearing seat belts. According to Tim from the Office of Traffic Safety, this varies, but it tends to be older folks and young adult males. "Common excuses are it’s uncomfortable, they will never get in a wreck, and it’s a personal choice that does not impact anyone but themselves," he explained to Bored Panda how some people try to play around wearing a seatbelt.
"Seat belts save lives. Nearly 15,000 lives were saved in 2017 because passengers and drivers chose to wear a seat belt. Having said that, more than 2,500 could have been saved if they wore a seat belt," he said. "The chances of significant injury or death are significantly reduced by buckling up. Whether it’s down the street or an hours-long road trip, always buckle up. Good news is that the seat belt use rate is 90% across the U.S. and even higher in California. But we are seeing that rate drop for rear passengers, especially when using ride-hailing services."
The fines for not wearing a seat belt depend on where you live. For instance, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety, there’s a sizeable fine of 490 dollars for any teenagers in the car under 16 who aren’t wearing them. Meanwhile, adults get fines of 162 dollars for seat belt violations.
There is only one US state, New Hampshire, that doesn’t require by law for adult drivers to wear safety belts. All the remaining states either have law enforcement or peace officers citing drivers for seat belt violations.
It’s natural that the redditor, hoping to protect their everyone’s lives, their license, and their wallet, didn’t want to budge until the two passengers complied. They didn’t and hopped out of the car, looking to make their own way to the airport.
Just one problem… one of them left a bag behind in the redditor’s car. Now, the redditor wasn’t willing to drive all over town with the bag because they were at work. Eventually, one of the young adults arrives in a taxi to grab the bag, but by then, they’d all wasted so much time, they missed their flight. The two passengers’ dad then called up the redditor and tried to pin the blame on them when it was pretty clear that it was his belligerent sons who were at fault.
You can’t bend the rules that put you and others in danger just because you might be late. If that were the case, everyone would be speeding everywhere. In short, it would lead to utter chaos.
Most redditors agree with this point of view as well. The vast majority thought that the original poster did the right thing. They blamed the two passengers for acting up and for being inflexible. They were practically acting like teenagers.
Californians are generally very safety conscious. A whopping 95.9 percent of drivers in the Sunshine State wear their seat belts. This is above the average of 90.7 percent in the United States. While these numbers are impressive, it still means that a fairly sizeable chunk of Americans avoid seat belts and needlessly put their lives in danger.
Most redditors couldn't believe that grown adults would act this way!
In the mood for another story about people refusing to wear seat belts? Then you’ll want to check out this recent article on Bored Panda right over here.
Meanwhile, let us know what you thought of the two young adults refusing to wear their seat belts. Have you ever been in a similar situation? In your opinion, what’s the best way to convince someone to just flippin’ wear their gosh darn seat belts?