Seatbelt PSA

I’ve seen quite a few posts with people wearing their seatbelt behind their appendix holster and across the middle of the abdomen. Being as this is a huge safety hazard, I figured I’d do a little PSA.Please do not wear your seatbelt like this. If worn correctly, your seat belt should go across your lap and sit on top of the holster and hips. The concern about the firearm being pushed into the abdomen and causing more damage is common, but totally unnecessary. However, wearing your seatbelt high on the abdomen, behind the holster, focuses the force of impact on the abdominal organs and puts you at a significantly greater risk of internal injury.Allow me to explain. During a traffic accident, three collisions occur:⁠Your vehicle hitting an object.⁠You hitting the internal structures of your car⁠Your internal organs hitting other internal structures within your body.If you aren’t wearing a seatbelt, the forces of the second collision, say you hitting the steering wheel, get concentrated onto a small area where they do a lot of damage. A seatbelt mitigates the force of this collision by keeping you from striking the internal components of your vehicle and instead spreads the force of the collision across hard, stable, body structures such as the pelvis, rib cage, and shoulder. So, rather than that force being concentrated onto a single vulnerable area, it is spread across bodily structures that can better absorb that force. Now, when you wear your seatbelt across the lower abdomen instead of the pelvis/lap, that force is instead spread across the soft tissue and organs of the lower abdomen. These organs do not absorb force well and are very vulnerable to injury.If you wear your seatbelt appropriately, across the holster, the holster sits in a “natural ravine” that is made up of a lot of soft fatty tissue between the two iliac crests (the hard bony prominence that you may know as your “hips”). So, when an impact occurs, while the weapon may be pushed somewhat further into this ravine, the two crests still bear much of the force. You’ll probably end up with some bruises from the firearm, but not much else.Long story short: wear your seatbelt just as you would if you didn’t have your firearm.Source: I’m an EMT who is very familiar with the mechanics of motor vehicle collisions, their effects on the body, and have seen a fair amount of abdominal trauma due to improper seatbelt usage. via /r/CCW http://bit.ly/2KB1gIJ