With a quarter-century of automotive journalism under my, uhm, belt, I thought I’d learned everything there was to know about the correct driving position. Adjust the mirrors to reduce blind spots; keep your hands at three and nine o’clock for maximum control of the steering wheel; place the seat far enough forward so that you don’t have to “hold” on to the wheel; but not too close either, keeping at least 250 millimetres (10 inches) between your torso and the airbag in case, well, it explodes!
All it took was one visit to the PMG Technologies test center in Blainville, north of Montreal, for Suzanne Tylko, chief of crashworthiness research for Transport Canada, to pop my (air)bag. At the ripe old age of 55, it appears I still didn’t know how to correctly position my seat belt.
Let me introduce you to Tylko, for whom road safety has been a vocation for over 30 years now. A native of Gatineau, she is responsible for crashing – literally – up to a hundred new vehicles every year at PMG Technologies on behalf of Transport Canada.
She is also involved in the international development of crash-test dummies, which, test after test, demonstrate the importance of vehicle restraint systems for passengers — including seat belts. And for her, beyond all the improvements that have been made over the years to our vehicles in the name of occupant safety, it is the seat belt that remains the most important.
The first line of defence
You read that right: the first line of “automotive” defence, the one that’s saved millions of lives since its invention in 1959 by Nils Bohlin, a Swedish engineer at Volvo, is the good old three-point seat belt as we know it today.
Study after study has proven it. Even in cars with advanced airbags, you still have to buckle up. Indeed, for maximum efficacy, airbags require the person they are designed to save are in an optimal position, a positioning that can only be maintained if the seat belt is constraining the occupant exactly where the airbag has maximum cushioning effect. A driver’s side airbag is of no use if you’ve been bounced into the passenger seat.
And, as Tylko points out, not only is securing your seat belt so easy, it will effectively restrain you from impacts that increase exponentially in risk with the speed you are travelling. According to the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), the severity of a collision is:
- at 50 km/h, equivalent to a four-storey fall;
- at 75 km/h, equivalent to an eight-storey fall; and
- at 100 km/h, equivalent to a 14-storey fall.
Not only does the seat belt protect you against the inevitable laws of physics, it keeps your wallet safe, too. As you know, a failure to “buckle up” results, in every province and territory across the country, in fines of several hundred dollars and the addition of demerit points to your driver’s record.
Yet not all motorists are getting the message. According to Transport Canada’s latest statistics, more than a quarter (29%) of drivers killed in road collisions across the country in 2022 were not wearing seat belts.
Besides drivers, the rate is even higher among fatally injured passengers, whether seated in the front or the back seat; more than a third (35%) were not wearing seat belts.
License suspension for those who don’t buckle up?
Among the victims was 25-year-old Félix Demers-Dubé. This young man lost his life when the little Hyundai Accent in the back seat of which he was riding was involved in a violent pile-up in the winter of 2022 on the south shore of Montreal. He was not wearing a seat belt and died instantly, suffering neck and facial injuries.
Next to him, on the bench seat, was a passenger who was wearing a seat belt. She “managed to get out of the car on her own”, specified coroner Rudi Daelman in his accident report.
As a result, the Quebec coroner made a very specific recommendation: to amend the Code de la sécurité routière so as to temporarily suspend the licenses of car occupants who fail to fasten their seat belts — whether they are driving the car or not.
Will such an idea find its way into the provincial governments’ dens, responsible for establishing Highway Traffic Codes’ regulations? Who knows? But, while waiting for an answer, let’s make sure we’re wearing our seat belts properly.
When was the last time you adjusted the harness?
This question is hammered into my head by Tylko during my visit to the PMG center. Insisting on showing me the ABCs of wearing a seat belt correctly, she seats me in a vehicle and asks me to buckle up. I comply. But then, with reproving eyes, she points to the top of the device and asks, “When was the last time you adjusted your baudrier?”
Uhm, the what?
The harness. Believe it or not, the shoulder strap can be adjusted to the size of the passengers. Mea culpa: of all the 1,001 adjustments we can make to personalize our vehicle, I’d never really paid much attention to that one.
Yet it should be a must: if the upper strap is too high or too low, it won’t do its job properly – that is, restraining movement of your chest and shoulders in the event of accident. Similarly, a lower strap that runs over the belly – a part of the body with vital organs – is likely to cause more serious injuries than one that runs over the pelvic bones, in the event of a collision.
The ABCs of the proper seat belt use
So, here’s how to properly buckle – and wear – your seat belt.
- The harness (the shoulder strap) should pass over the middle of the shoulder. Not too close to the ear, but not at the tip of the collarbone, either. “Otherwise, in the event of an impact, the body will unnecessarily rush forward,” explains Tylko.
- Ensuring the upper strap is in the right place couldn’t be simpler: press the release button on that upper strap mount, and then slide the anchor up or down on the door pillar, where the belt retracts.
- Of course, the strap must remain taut. And it must not be twisted; otherwise the forces of an impact will not be distributed optimally.
- The bottom strap shouldn’t rest on the belly, but a little lower down, on the pelvic bones. The pelvic is the part of the human body that will better withstand impacts than the stomach, which, of course, houses vital organs that are not nearly as robust as bone. It should also not be too low — i.e. on your thighs — because there are also easily-damaged arteries there.
More specifically, Tylko says, “the lower belt has to be placed under your bulge – not over.” What if you have one, two, or even several, uh, “muffin tops”? Well, the belt still should go underneath. “It’s the same advice I give to pregnant women,” reports Tylko.
Seat belts: what’s the rule for children?
You probably already know — because road-safety experts have been hammering us with this for years — that children aged 12 and under should not sit in the front car seat. It’s better to put them in the back.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not a question of size or weight, but rather of discipline, explains Tylko: “Children move. Even sitting in the front seat, they quickly tire of being in the car, they stretch to reach the radio, they complain of being uncomfortable, they slip under the seat belt. In the event of an accident, they may not be in the right position if the airbag deploys.”
So, in the back with rambunctious ones. And younger children must also be seated in the appropriate, well, seat, whether that’s baby or booster, of course.
Sign up for our newsletter Blind-Spot Monitor and follow our social channels on X, Tiktok and LinkedIn to stay up to date on the latest automotive news, reviews, car culture, and vehicle shopping advice.