Why everyone needs to be properly restrained

• Some states require only that babies be buckled in. Other require only that front-seat passengers be buckled in. Research, however, indicates that all passengers need to be buckled in -- to save themselves AND the other people in the vehicle. In 2002, the University of Tokyo found that front-seat passengers who were buckled in were 5 times more likely to die if back-seat passengers were not properly restrained. In an accident, unrestrained passengers in the back often became human missiles, hurtling into the front seat and colliding with passengers there. The Tokyo study estimated that 80 percent of the deaths of restrained front-seat passengers could have been avoided if back-seat passengers had also been restrained. Other research shows that the converse also is true. in a crash, front-seat passengers can be thrown into the back seat, harming or killing properly restrained passengers in the back.

Save your family members the trauma of accidentally killing each other -- please buckle everyone in.