By The Way...

Tuesday, September 11, 2007
4:23:00 PM EDT
Hearing No Subject (Come With Me) -- Cartel
In one of those stories which gives you yet another thing to worry about, Slate write Emily Bazelon writes about the dangers of reclining in the passenger seat of a car:

A couple of weeks ago, I was sleeping in the front passenger seat of our car when it slammed into the vehicle in front of us. We were on the highway coming home from a family trip. The other three people in our car weren't hurt. But I'd reclined my seat, and my seat belt, which was riding high, left a long welt around my rib cage and along my stomach. As it turned out, I had internal bleeding from a lacerated spleen and three cracked ribs. I spent the next two days in intensive care.

I've recovered nicely, thank you. But the more I thought about my accident, the more I wondered whether I'd inadvertently done myself in by tilting my car seat back—as I do on just about every long drive. We worry a lot about car seats and kids (a subject I've written about). There are government guides and centers that show you how to buckle and position them right. Adults, on the other hand, are just told to wear their seat belts... Tilt your car seat back in the front, and you'll find that the seat belt no longer rides the way it's supposed to—the upper strap moves up toward your neck and the lower one up from your pelvis to your middle. And it turns out that is dangerous—though somehow neither the government nor car manufacturers think they need to clearly tell us so.

She right that it's not something most of us think about at all. I personally don't tend to recline my seat when I'm on the passenger side, but my wife does -- and of course, now having read this, I'll start wondering if I should be concerned every time she does.

The fact of the matter, I suspect, is that people do all sorts of seating arrangements in their cars which are not conducive to safety, even with their seatbelts on. I don't recline in the passenger seat, but I do have a tendency to twist my body, which puts the belt at an awkward position across my body. I don't imagine it's terribly safe.

How about you?


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This entry has 4 comments: (Add your own)

• #4 Comment from neonfever 
  9/12/07 10:47 AM | Permalink

  With respect to car manufacturers, I would note that my wife has a Volvo and the passenger seat does not recline. You can adjust the seat for comfort, but you cannot adjust it back far enough to actually recline.
  
  Thus, there are some manufactureres who are taking this safety thing seriously.
• #3 Comment from psychfun 
  9/11/07 11:45 PM | Permalink

  And I wouldn't be surprised if Insurance companies don't want to pay fully since you are in negligence.
• #2 Comment from pixiedustnme 
  9/11/07 10:28 PM | Permalink

  I think that's one of those things that goes along with putting your feet up on the dash board (broken legs from an airbag deploying) or driving with your window only rolled part way down (cuts, lacerations, amputations of ears, fingers, etc... depending on what's close to the glass).  You never know when an accident is coming and I guess you just have to decide how much you want to live with the fear!
• #1 Comment from lannaleemaheux 
  9/11/07 10:23 PM | Permalink

  I do recline.
  
  However, I disagree with the author's point about the car companies not telling consumers about the dangers. When you buy a car, you are advised to read the instruction manual. Because I have a new (to me) car, I recently read my car's manual, which did clearly state that one should not recline in the passenger seat when the car was moving.
  
  One could counter that the car companies should do more to inform us. I don't think so, but maybe that's because I am tired of people (media, government, parents, society, man) telling me what I "should" do.