Seat belt proponents claim this is why you should always wear your seat belt
Detroit resident Paradise Warsaw speaks out about the importance of seatbelts after she and her daughters were injured in an accident.
- Properly wearing seat belts reduces fatalities by 45% and serious injuries by 50% for front seat passengers.
- The most common injuries when unrestrained during a crash include head and spinal cord trauma.
On the morning of January 6, 2024, Detroit resident Paradise Warsaw was involved in a brutal car accident along with her daughters Lylia Williams and Payden Pinson.
A year later, the details are still hazy, but Warsaw, 30, remembers his 2010 Ford Edge hitting what appeared to be a block of black ice and spinning out. The vehicle collided with the wall on the passenger side of the highway.
Everyone was sitting in the car when it stopped. Their injuries occurred after they exited the vehicle.
“It just didn’t sit right with me to just sit there and wait and see the light come,” Warsaw recently told the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network. “I keep hearing stories about people not being able to get into their cars. … I couldn’t sit there and be helpless.”
Shortly after leaving the Ford Edge and driving further down the shoulder of the highway, all three were struck by another vehicle.
She doesn’t remember much after that. Over the past year, Warsaw and the children have undergone numerous surgeries and months of physical therapy. Warsaw lost jobs in its security sector. At the age of 11, Lilia was forced to quit the majorettes and support them. Seven-year-old Payden recovered faster than her mother and sister.
Warsaw said her only health goal is to one day walk without a limp.
And after the accident, she could no longer understand people who take car safety for granted, especially people who don’t wear seatbelts.
“I don’t understand why someone would get in a car and not wear it,” Warsaw said. “People think things like that will never happen. But life is life. Things that I thought would never happen to me and my children actually happened.”
To buckle or not to buckle?
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), nearly half of the 23,969 passenger car occupants killed on U.S. roads in 2023 were unbuckled.
It’s also less likely that a passenger will sit down while you’re in the back seat.
But what are the main reasons for not buckling up? Because there’s no need for that.
Michigan law states that anyone sitting in the back seat of a vehicle who is not an adult must be buckled up.
Young men are the least likely to take steps to reduce their health risks because they don’t believe they’re at risk, according to research by communications professor Matthew Seeger, Ph.D., co-director of Wayne State University’s Center for Emerging Diseases and an expert in emergency risk communication.
“The COVID-19 mask phenomenon has shown us that ‘we don’t wear masks because it’s a hoax.’ If we don’t believe something is dangerous, we won’t take action,” Seeger said. “People who choose not to wear seatbelts are not making that choice based on empirical data. They come to that conclusion based on stories and advice from Uncle Jim on Thanksgiving. Data is necessary, but not sufficient, to change behavior.”
New rules, new habits?
Kendra Blocker, chief seat belt engineer and technology specialist at General Motors, is working to increase seat belt usage in vehicles. She’s working on seatbelt reminders, which are becoming increasingly prominent in GM’s product line. NHTSA’s new seatbelt reminder rules require the technology to be in all vehicles by September 2027, Blocker said, adding that the company is already on track to meet that goal ahead of the mandate.
“The dashboard screen shows who’s buckled up with a red X or a green check mark. My kids know that my car won’t move unless it’s buckled up, but when my friends get in the car, they don’t buckle up.”
Seatbelt buckle reminders are now standard on rear seats. Starting with the 2024 model year, GM has begun a transition to vehicles equipped with chimes and lights throughout the vehicle.
“Currently, the seatbelt chime continues for 90 seconds, but NHTSA’s new regulations require the chime to continue sounding until the front row seat belt is buckled.”
What is required by law
Michigan State Police Lt. Mike Shaw said the driver was not wearing a seatbelt as much as before.
In 1984, fewer than 20% of people in Michigan wore seat belts, according to state police. Immediately after the law took effect in July 1985, the rate rose to 60%, but then fell to 45%, then rose again, hitting an all-time high in 2009.
“These are not accidents, these are collisions. Someone did something they shouldn’t have done and caused a collision. We need to move away from the idea that these collisions cannot be prevented,” he said. “People aren’t paying attention. You see fully marked state police cars lying wide. People hit fire trucks. You never know how fast 75 miles an hour is until you’re hanging your butt in traffic while writing a ticket.”
A 2022 NHTSA study that looked at data from 2013 to 2022 found that seatbelt use nationwide was about 91% in the front seats, but only 80% in the back rows. For third-row vehicles, the compliance rate dropped further to about 60%, according to GM.
Mr. Shaw noted that part of what may be contributing to the myth that sitting in the back seat is safer for passengers than it actually is is the lack of requirements for rear seat passengers.
“If a car is going 70 mph and you crash, it’s going to keep going 70 mph until it hits something, and that’s usually the front seat,” he said.
How you wear your seat belt is important
Even if a belt is technically “on,” it does not mean it will function as designed. After long car rides, some people may be tempted to slip the shoulder harness behind them or under their armpits.
“What we use today, the three-point harness, is the best belt,” says GM Blocker. “Seat belts should go from your shoulders, through your sternum, and down to your hips, and lap belts should go around your hips, hitting major bone joints.”
Blocker added that seat belts, when worn properly, can reduce fatalities by 45% and serious injuries by 50% for front seat passengers. This is because if the belt does not cover the more durable parts of the body during a crash, “it will compress the organs.”
GM sells clips in its dealerships that redistribute seat belt pressure for young children and adults who find the belt uncomfortable.
Another optional feature on GM vehicles is buckle-to-drive. Enabling this feature prevents the driver from shifting out of a parking spot for 20 seconds or until the seat belt is fastened. In many models, this also applies to front-seat passengers, who must buckle up before the driver leaves the park.
injury costs
For much of 2025, Warsaw and his family have been working with physical therapists at the DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan (RIM) outpatient program.
They are among about 1,000 RIM outpatients this year recovering from injuries sustained in car accidents.
RIM, the only independent rehabilitation hospital in metropolitan Detroit, accepts referrals from hospital systems in southeastern Michigan and provides intensive, specialized care for patients recovering from a variety of problems, especially serious injuries. The majority of patients then transition to one of RIM’s 22 outpatient physical therapy centers in southeastern Michigan to continue their recovery.
Kayla Zell, a staff physical therapist at RIM who works with Warsaw and Her Daughters, said most of the injuries that occur when unrestrained at the facility in a crash are head, spinal and neck pain from the force of hitting the dashboard or roof of a car. Typically, each patient requires 10 to 12 outpatient physical therapy visits.
Warsaw said since the accident, she no longer trusts other parents to pick up and drop off her children. Although her family always wears seatbelts, all of her daughter’s friends and family do not believe that she will ever be as cautious about driving without going through a similar traumatic experience.
While warnings and data alone aren’t enough without personal experience to change behavior, Wayne State University’s Seeger suggests establishing social norms in the car. If most of the vehicle’s passengers support belt-wearing, it becomes even more difficult for individuals to take a stand.
Another influential tool is humor.
One of the most effective seat belt campaigns were the crash test dummy commercials produced by NHTSA in the 1980s and 1990s. Dummies Vince and Larry were exposed to a series of situations designed to demonstrate the importance of wearing seatbelts. For example, there was one point where he indicated he trusted the front airbag, but he was hit from the side and the buckle was not buckled, so he flew out the car door.
Seger said the TV spots were “funny, memorable and easy to understand.” “It’s much better than an argument. When you argue with people about why they’re not wearing a seatbelt, they have to make an argument about why it’s okay not to wear a seatbelt. You’re forcing them to double down on that belief system through the defense narrative.”
Shaw said he has had fatalities in what his department considers to be minor crashes simply because the backseat passenger was not wearing a seatbelt. At the end of the day, he said, the responsibility lies with the driver.
“It’s your car. You have to take responsibility for what’s going on inside the car. If you’re the designated driver, you should never drink alcohol. Same goes for seat belts. If (passengers) are bouncing around in that car, one of the things they could hit is you.”
What is your advice to drivers if someone does not want to wear a seat belt?
“Tell them to take an Uber.”
Jackie Charniga covers General Motors for the Free Press. please contact her jcharniga@freepress.com.
