Belt up: it's the safest policy
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VIOST lorry drivers who dislike ;eat belts seem to have a greater ear of death from a forwarddiding load than from ejection rom the cab. They might ;hange their attitude if they read FRRL supplementary report 586 n which B. S. Riley and H. J. 3ates examine fatal accidents nvotving heavy goods vehicles n Great Britain in 1976.
Of 67 occupants of heavy lor ries who were killed, 17 were thrown out of the cab, mostly through the windscreen. Ten of those who were ejected were thrown from vehicles that had rolled over. The report concludes that nearly a fifth of those who died might still be alive if they had been wearing seat belts. Other lives would have been saved if cabs had been stronger.
The authors are not dogmatic about seat belts. They say that care must be taken in using information on fatal accidents to make general recommendations about the value of belts but the results of their work broadly agree with another TRRL study of a more general sample of heavy goods vehicle accidents. Such evidence is not lightly to be dismissed.