NC I95 towable crash near Kenly

wa8yxm wrote:
Side note and story: I recall the screams when Michigan passed a seat belt and child restraint laws (no won't go into that)

The story One parent wrote about how much they hated the child seat law.. How it caused all sorts of problems cause with that big child seat in the truck there was not enough room for the entire family and so on and so forth.

Till the truck ran off the road and the infant in the child seat.. NOT EVEN A BRUISE..

Another story: Child restraint law at this point but no Seat belt: Rollover.. Multiple dead. Baby, in child seat, covered in blood.. ALL BELONGING TO ADULTS. Baby not even scratched. (That one I dispatched troopers to).

Another story: (Still no seat belt law) 4 people in car. 3 laughed at 4th who buckled up.. Car crashed.> The one with the buckled belt got a split lip and 3 funerals to attend. (She was my daughter's babysitter).

The difference is by the time seat belt use was mandated, there was a plentiful supply of data supporting the requirement. Seat belts had been around for decades and crash reports were collecting information on if the occupants were using them. There were also studies tracking how many people regularly use seat belts for many years, so injury rates per mile driven could be estimated.

Personally, I think they were a little heavy handed in the seatbelt approach but the data was there.

By contrast, I know of no similar studies for riding in trailers and there are no standardized data entries on crash reports for occupants in trailers. You would have to read each report and hope the officer noted it in the description but with negligible data on how many ride in trailers developing comparable injury rates would be effectively impossible. Having read thousands of police reports...not going to happen.