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Automobile lap belts are dangerous. Not only can they fail to provide ample protection in the event of an accident, but the older variety seat belts can actually be the cause of severe and fatal injuries. Studies have shown that in some instances lap belts were more dangerous than if an accident victim had been wearing no seat belt at all.
The problem with lap belts is that in the event of an accident, particularly a frontal collision, the belts can focus the impact of the crash to a person’s mid-section, causing serious abdominal and spinal cord injury. Such traumatic injuries have resulted in paraplegia, quadriplegia, facial fractures, head injuries, and even death. Most vulnerable in these cases are smaller passengers, generally children and adolescents. The newer lap-shoulder belts, or three-point belts, have proven to be much more effective in preventing injuries. Unfortunately, those belts were not required for years as standard equipment in many cars, most notably in the rear center seating section – and still aren’t mandated for all cars until 2007 models. Kline & Specter, P.C., a Philadelphia firm with some 30 lawyers, five of whom are also doctors, has successfully litigated lap belt lawsuits. If you or someone you know suffered a severe injury or death as the result of a lap belt injury, you may want to contact a seat belt attorney for a free evaluation of your case. In one case, the firm negotiated a settlement with General Motors for a young man who was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was injured by a lap belt in a head-on collision. Two other passengers in the Chevrolet Cavalier, including one also in the rear seat who was not wearing a seat belt, were not seriously hurt. (See The Miller Case.) In 2006, Shanin Specter tried a lap belt case against another major American automaker for a 10 year-old girl rendered a quadriplegic in a head-on collision. This case resulted in a favorable settlement. Lap belts were long thought to be hazardous, but the first highly publicized definitive proof came in a 1986 report by the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency that had initially sought to investigate the effectiveness of seat belts in general but soon focused it’s attention on lap belts. The study found that in accidents involving 50 people who wore lap belts, 26 sustained serious to fatal injuries in crashes in which other occupants – wearing three-point belts or no belts at all – were less seriously injured or had walked away uninjured. Among all those involved in the auto accidents studied, 13 of the people who wore lap belts were killed, while only four people (out of 57) who were unrestrained died and only one (of 32) who was wearing a combination lap-shoulder belt died. The NTSB concluded: “In many cases, the lap belts induced severe to fatal injuries that probably would not have occurred if the lap belts had not been worn.” Shoulder belts were introduced in the early 1960s by Volvo but were not a requirement for autos sold in the United States until 1972, and then only for the front seats. Lap-shoulder belts were not required for rear seats until 1989 for all new cars and not until 1991 for all light trucks – and then only for the outside rear seats, not the rear center seat. All cars will be required to have the three-point seat belts in the middle rear seats by 2007. Yet that requirement pertains only to new cars and there will still be millions of cars on the road that will still have the dangerous lap belts in the center rear seat, where children and other smaller passengers often sit. Click here to contact a seat belt lawyer today.
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In New Jersey: Atlantic City, Cape May, Cherry Hill, Hackensack, Hoboken, Jersey City, Newark, New Brunswick, Montclair, Newark, New Brunswick, Trenton, Union City, Voorhees. In Delaware: Dover and Newark regions. *** Kline & Specter handles major cases throughout the United States. Select a state: Alabama AL, Alaska AK, Arizona AZ, Arkansas AR, California CA, Colorado CO, Connecticut CT, Delaware DE, District of Columbia DC, Florida FL, Georgia GA, Hawaii HI, Idaho ID, Illinois IL, Indiana IN, Iowa IA, Kansas KS, Kentucky KY, Louisiana LA, Maine ME, Maryland MD, Massachusetts MA, Michigan MI, Minnesota MN, Mississippi MS, Missouri MO, Montana MT, Nebraska NE, Nevada NV, New Hampshire NH, New Jersey NJ, New Mexico NM, New York NY, North Carolina NC, North Dakota ND, Ohio OH, Oklahoma OK, Oregon OR, Pennsylvania PA, Rhode Island RI, South Carolina SC, South Dakota SD, Tennessee TN, Texas TX, Utah UT, Vermont VT, Virginia VA, Washington WA, West Virginia WV, Wisconsin WI, Wyoming WY. Disclaimer: Kline & Specter, P.C. only provides legal advice after having entered into an attorney client relationship, which our website specifically does not create. It is imperative that any action taken be done on advice of counsel. Because every case is different, the description of awards and cases previously handled do not guarantee a similar outcome in current or future cases. The firm practices law in New Jersey as Kline & Specter. Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America and other organizations that rate attorneys are not designations that have been approved by the State Supreme Courts or the American Bar Association. |Home| |Firm
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