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Seatbelts

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Seatbelts

Motor vehicle seatbelt use provides highly effective protection in frontal collisions for impacts at angles up to 30 degrees off-center (i.e. between 11 and 1 o’clock). All states have laws requiring their use for front seat passengers, as they have been shown to reduce moderate to severe injuries by 50%. However, a seatbelt is less effective when the vehicle is hit in the rear or side and sometimes their locking devices malfunction or the anchorage gives way.  Car accidents where the occupants are not wearing their seatbelt often lead to the passengers striking the interior of the vehicle, or being ejected.  Our engineers can perform biomechanical simulations and injury analysis to determine whether seatbelt use could have prevented injury or ejection in a particular accident.

 

Special consideration need to be made for proper restraint of small children: A seatbelt should always be used in conjunction with rear facing infant seats (for infants up to 22 lbs), child seats (for ages 1 to 4, weighing up to 40 lbs) and booster seats for children between 4 and 8 (up to 80 lbs).

Our engineers have been assisting attorneys and insurance representatives in investigating accidents since 1990. We have a highly qualified staff of engineers with advanced degrees from top-tier universities who have provided testimony on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants at trial

Previous Cases

Rear seated belted passenger fatality

A woman fell asleep at the wheel and drove her car off the road killing one rear seated young son and seriously injuring a second. By examining the seatbelt ribbon, we detected long abrasion marks that indicated that the seatbelt worn by the deceased malfunctioned. The parent's attorney was able to settle the case easily after disclosing our report to the automobile manufacturer.

Pickup truck rollover

A pickup truck's brakes failed to hold, causing the driver to swerve to avoid striking cars stopped ahead of him. Two unbelted passengers in the front seat were thrown from the pickup as it rolled, causing the woman to receive a life-long brain injury. We helped the defendant show that her injuries occurred only after she left the vehicle, prompting a greatly reduced settlement.