Do you have one of those combination glass breaker/seat belt cutter in your car?
I keep one in one of my vehicles but will be putting one in our other car, plus sending one to my kid with a car.
One of my coworkers almost lost their grade school aged child this weekend. They were driving in a fairly remote area (not a big city) and the child was playing with the seat belt, wrapping it around their neck.
The belt tightened, and the child’s sibling alerted my coworker that something was up. They pulled off the road and my coworker undid the seat belt but the belt would not release the tension.
My coworker had nothing in their car to cut the belt with and meanwhile their child was choking and gasping for air. The sibling was able to flag down a driver that had a cutting tool.
The child ended up with a CT scan to check for damage but will be ok.
The tools are good for accidents that result in a submerged car or a seat belt malfunction. If you don’t have one, consider getting one. They’re only a few bucks.
Wow, scary story! I have a Swiss army knife in the glove compartment. Not for citing the seat belt necessarily. I was in the habit of having it around.
My son gave me one due to my crazy fear of being in my car under water and not being able to get out! To be honest, it’s in a messy compartment in my car and I doubt I’d be able to find it in a panic. I should probably velcro it to the dashboard.
I have one and I keep it in my driver’s door little compartment, so it is within arm’s reach. I too have an irrational fear of a bridge falling apart while I am driving on it and I am trapped in the car.
@ucbalumnus sadly no it doesn’t release it, because the tension was still there. It’s actually a safety feature, apparently, and not a malfunction. You’d have to be able to release the entire belt which was kept taut by the belt wrapped around the child’s neck.
If that were the case, wouldn’t many people be having difficulty unbuckling infant seats that are secured tightly (as they are supposed to be) by the seat belts?
From what I’ve read, on newer cars when the seat belt is pulled out fully the locking mechanism engages. The belt then only moves one way- tighter. It’s apparently a safety feature for car seat installations, but I’ll admit it’s been wayyyy too long since I’ve had to install a car seat so I don’t know how that works.
And I guess the only way to overcome that locking/continuous tightening is the feed the belt all the way back into the (whatever you call the place where the seatbelt is normally stored)
A co-worker and I were talking one day. She and I were from the same general area in Wisconsin but were working together in Minneapolis. Anyway, we were talking about cars with electric windows and at the same time both said “The lady from Lake Dubay!” When cars first had electric windows and locks, a lady drove off the bridge and they couldn’t get her out of the car because of the windows and door locks, and she drowned.
No one in central Wisconsin would get electric windows for years.
After reading this thread last night, I had a dream that my car drove off into the water but I had my tool handy. Thankfully I woke up before I had to use it!