So it's likely you could get an immediate decrease in total traffic deaths of close to 20% if you could just force everyone to wear a seatbelt.
My car will nag the hell out of me if anyone isn't wearing a seatbelt at speeds over 20 km/h. I assume this is true for most modern cars.
Part of the population who didn't grow up with seatbelts is aging. I remember my late grandmother hated the seatbelts, they didn't exist when she grew up. Often she would pretend to use the belt, holding it in place by hand so that it looked like she was wearing it. Stupid, and illogical, but that's how it is..
That only leaves the "cool" youths. Once "modern" naggy cars become old and cheap enough for them, they'll probably start too (or go out of their way to disable the sensor, or uncomfortably wear a seatbelt behind their back - turning a passive action into an active one.).
Sadly I have seen a number of people use "alarm silencers" basically just an end cap to fool the automated system that the seatbelt has been engaged. They even have some cute designs with Micky mouse heads for example.
Even people that have grown up with seatbelt alarms. The common explanations I've seen is that it "messes up my suite" or "feels uncomfortable".
Fire detectors covers/alarm silencers/extinguisher disablers.. Life boat/jackets deflators.. fake empty lightweight shell bike/motorcycle helmets.. reflector blackouts.. etc..
Kinda like buying Darwin Award lottery tickets..
The way some people get around it is by plugging a fake "belt end" thing into it so it thinks you're wearing a seatbelt. Quite stupid because that also enables the airbags which are quite dangerous if you're not wearing the seatbelt.
I've got another vehicle where it goes full chicken little if I don't button the seat belt first.
Both of them make me nostalgic for a Mitsubishi I had where the "chime" was a specific speaker that was easily disconnected and not a full blown part of the stereo/canbus/ecu and blasting out of every speaker in the car.
Yeah, I don't have my seat belt on.. because I am getting out of the car!
Next comes the expensive things: Replace the car fleet with large, safe and modern cars. Build infrastructure like pedestrian walkways etc to have few unprotected people in traffic. Replace crossings with roundabouts and rebuild motorways and other high speed roads to never have oncoming traffic (separating railings etc). Have extensive automated speed monitoring, including average-speed monitoring, i.e. multiple speed cameras that time the passage of cars over some distance such as through a tunnel.
SUVs are not only notorious for their awful gas mileage but also how unsafe they can be for the pedestrian or other car they hit if they do.
Not necessarily for the other cards on the road, or pedestrians.
From what I was told this is how it works:
Prosecutors are bribed to make intentional mistakes so that a judge will dismiss a case (called in Romanian "viciu de procedura", roughly translated to "procedural defect").
Judges themselves are bribed usually in high profile cases, and because of the many legal loopholes it is difficult to prove they are corrupt. Laws can often be interpreted two ways, and it's not uncommon that two lower courts give radically different sentences compared to higher courts.
I heard of cases where doctors are bribed so that a sudden serious health issue is discovered so the perpetrator doesn't get to serve time. Specifically related to traffic offences a high profile political figure recently killed two people, and although the guy was initially able to walk on his own, two days later, the individual was shown on a hospital bed unable to move. The media suspects both doctors and the judge will be influenced, because in Romania by law a judge has to establish what is the percentage of fault each party has. The guy was on the phone when he killed a car driving opposite lane, but since he has been injured "seriously" then the victim is also being blamed for ...injuring the perpetrator. Since he was hospitalized it's easier for a judge to say the victim had X% of fault and thus give a more lenient sentence.
Someone I know working for the economic police told me that they are told exactly whom not to verify, because they are known to do tax avoidance, but they "create jobs" (everything has an excuse) so they are to be left alone.
Basically, there are so many wholes in the system that one doesn't need to bribe the foot soldier, they can just bribe on part of the system and they will get away with it. Applies to traffic offences, financial crime and everything else.
Don't get me started to the amount of fraud that happens with EU funding in Romania as that's also ripe with creative ways to rig the system.
What I find very strange is that people really don't like talking about such issues, saying one should not bad mouth their own country, or when the EU raises such issues they raise the "non interference in internal affairs card". If the foreign media raises it then it's racism. There is a small number of people still opposing this, but recently the police has without shame started beating or harassing them. I see no change in sight because the culture itself is predominantly in favor of letting things work as they do.
In cities it's different, there even a 10 km/h reduction makes a big difference for safety on intersections and with bikes/pedestrians.
It is mostly driving culture, I noticed in Romania people have to get quick everywhere because of "reasons". They have a car so they feel important. Like "out of the way pesants on foot". There was a lot of bad roads, and romanian people I was working with, mostly complained about roads being shitty. (Taxi drivers driving like Formula 1 drivers, good that we did not crashed into anything)
That said, Poland would be somewhere in between Romania and Netherlands (not sure about stats) but in my impression of driving culture. There is still a lot of people who think "I have a car, I am important, I have to be quick everywhere because of reasons". Infrastructure was bad in Poland as well (last years we got a lot of better roads, so I am happy about that and hope Romania gets their infra a lot better also, or have it built now).
In the Netherlands, no one gives a fuck if you have a car, you are not important just because you drive. Everyone basically can afford a car (not being communistic country, everyone having a car would be quite normal since 80's, I bet Norway also had a lot more people driving since 80's than in PL or Romania) so by any means having a car is not a status symbol (unless it is new Porsche or Tesla). Fines are insanely expensive (at least from what I read it is also the case in Norway).
So basically two things as my take away for this: drivers thinking they are more important, shitty infrastructure.
Better roads & infrastructure (which lead to less car use and slower traffic), driver education, enforcing traffic laws do help though.
One way to (sort-of) check that would be to compare that 1/3rd with the fraction of all drivers that do not wear a seat belt.
Knew some kids on HS who liked to party hard. They drove drunk and somehow flipped their car. One of my friends wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was flung violently from the car -- but lived. Even made a full recovery, eventually. The driver and another passenger were crushed.
That’s not “Indeed” at all. I claim that “belt ⇒ survival” isn’t true (as confirmed by the fact that 2/3rds of those dying in traffic did wear a seatbelt)
In Norwegian: https://www.vegvesen.no/trafikkinformasjon/trafikksikkerhet/...