SEATBELTS and LONGEVITY

Yesterday a friend of mine offered me a ride from the Wharf Rat clubhouse to a restaurant about 10 blocks away where I was going to meet the Kitty. He took pride in his 25 year old car. It did indeed have a patina and took ALL the worry out of getting a parking lot ding, if you know what I mean. As I got into the passenger side and he threw all the crap he had on the seat into the back, I hunted for the seat belt-shoudler harness. He said "You don't need a seatbelt we are only going a few blocks and no more than 20 miles per hour." I found the belt and put it on without any "lectures" on physics. I saved that for this column.

If you are sitting in a car that is going 20 miles per hour, how fast do you think you are going? And if the car stops suddenly because it hit a brick wall or worse yet another car going 20 mph in the opposite direction, how fast will you continue to go? The answer is "If you do not have your seatbelt on, you will continue going forward at 20 mph and will hit the dash and windshield at that speed." It may not kill you, but your dentist and plastic surgeon will be able to pay their alimony payments more easily.

And the moral of the story is... part of being healthy is paying attention to a few little things every day that generally lead to increased longevity. Fastening your seatbelt is one of those.

Now for a little bit of physics... the energy your body has to absorb when it hits something immovable is related to your weight times (x) your velocity SQUARED. That means that the impact at 20 miles per hour is not TWICE that at 10 miles per hour, it is 4 TIMES as much. This multiplier gets worse the faster you go. Many things in science are like that. When you see reports of an earthquake and they say it is 5.6 on the Richter scale, one that is 5.7 is not just a little worse. It is not like a CD rate. When you hear about hurricanes, a category 5 is much much worse than a category 4 because of the velocity of the wind, which like the speed of your car, multiplies the damage. The same is true for hearing damage from increased decibel sound, and on and on.

To summarize.... put your seatbelt on even if you are just backing you car out of the garage to wash it. Get in the habit. And do not underestimate the "low" speed accident. People spend a lot of time on makeup and going to the salon for hair styling, fashion, and teeth whitening. We lead with our faces in our everyday life. Don't let a low speed accident ruin all your hard work.