Whoa now, fellow reader. The man is on his back in a hospital bed and you feel it's slapping around time?

Your screen rage is just as alarming as road rage . . . and upholds the validity if your screen name.

Seat Belts help in head on or rear end collisions. In any accident coming from the side, they are counter productive, they trap you rather then displace you, It looks to me the T-boned car took the blunt and that transferred force was dissolved by the distant it traveled. If there had been a truck or wall there .... there would be a funeral today.

I'm sorry, the ref. to wall meant on the other side of the accident.. as for passengers, I think the law says front seat passengers, back seat is optional, doesn't it?

I agree Alan! I truly hope that everyone involved in this crash makes a speedy and productive recovery. With that said, I am surprised that Brooks did not have on a seat belt. There is no excuse. There really isn't whether you are a our county executive or a regular Joe sitting next to him.

Haulin T - "In any accident coming from the side, they are counter productive" - gotta stop you there. The only place I can find this argument are at Individual Liberty Hawk websites supported by anecdotal stories and speculative claims. Their main argument: mandatory seat belt laws represent a governmental intrusion into purely private conduct.

Data from long-term National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) studies do NOT support the counter-productive theory, even for side impacts. Particularly now that most cars have air bags. A particularly disturbing finding - that the unbelted person acts as an incredibly forceful, high speed projectile within the car - injuring, often crushing to death, belted and unbelted passengers in the car.

Thus, when you decide not to buckle, you're not just expressing your individual freedom - you're making a potentially life or death decision for your fellow passengers.

Erin, I am not sure you ever worked in R & D, but side collisions and belts and center con's, guarantee you will be trapped and smashed, unable to move with the force. key word is trapped. Your the same type that goes a ha, he wasn't wearing his helmet, in a head on motorcycle accident at 60 mph, ever see what they have to do to get a pair of steel toe "safety" shoes off a person who's Steel toe was bent around his toes. They are great to keep your toes from a boo boo, from a 12, 18 " crescent wrench dropping on your , or a 1" cap screw ect.......... I am not right wing any thing, just a person that did R &D, if your concern about others, don't let people use cross walks with out in some sort of container, painted lines never stopped any car, it is the driver, do you know that strobe flashing cross walks are 80 & safer then using "Traffic Lights" as people crossers. if your the driver by all means take one for the passenger..... most t'bones are not seat belt recorded at least use to be.

Haulin T - Have worked in R + D, yes, but not in manufacturing, which it sounds like you are. I’m a huge data nerd – so if you have new long term studies specifically on side impact accidents from reliable sources, please share.

I wouldn’t say I’m ever the type to say “ha” at anyone’s accident regardless of any perceived “fault”, just careful about floating out ideas that change basic safety protocol unless it’s based on hard data.

And, I make no assumption of anyone being a r-winger. Some folks are just plain old strict Libertarians, which I think is good to keep in the mix.

Thanks for sharing your insight -

Haulin T., Side impacts are the most dangerous to humans. We can take serious G force while on our backs. That is why astronauts are launched with their backs to the force vector. From the front we can take about 80% of the back side applied force. Now side impacts tend to rip our internal organs loose and mix them up. Not good belted or not. So in a way you’re are partially right about side impact. However if you get hit behind your door and when that door opens due to impact force, what will keep you inside the envelope? Every day people get hit in side impacts with less force than what Brooks had and every day unbelted occupants are left doing the “dog paddle” on the pavement trying to avoid the other oncoming cars because they weren’t restrained. Passenger ejection is a leading cause of vehicle deaths.

Good point, Chuck . . . Perhaps they had belts buckled behind 'em (awkward and why bother?), or disabled the electronic reminder somehow (tsk, tsk).

After a while the "auto nag" belt reminder will give up.

Was Patterson in the back seat or the front passenger seat? Anyone know?

To be honest, I rarely see police officers wearing seat belts while in their cruisers. I believe the main reason they don't is so that they are ready to jump out of their car in the event of an emergency.

was Patterson in the back seat? I would think so, since to have a driver, not sure, but must ride in the back...... thus seat belt is optional. is it not...........