Teenage girl killed seconds after taking off seatbelt to take a selfie - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kailee-mills-selfie-car-crash-seatbelt-halloween-party-a8338971.html The grieving parents of a teenager killed seconds after she took off her seatbelt to take a selfie are launching a campaign to convince people to keep their belts on at all times. Kailee Mills, 16, was with three friends in a car near her home in Texas, heading out to a party when the vehicle crashed and rolled over. The other three teenagers, who had their seatbelts on, survived. Her parents say although she normally followed the law in wearing her belt, she unfastened it to take a selfie with her friend. Authorities believe the driver was speeding and lost control of the car, news station KTRK reported. In 2014, a woman driver died in a head-on collision in North Carolina just seconds after she posted selfies on Facebook. What a foolish way to go.

While obviously tragic, it's at least nice to see the parents campaigning against people repeating their daughter's actions instead of shifting blame somewhere else.

Extremely shitty luck, I mean what are the chances?

pretty high, considered she took off her seatbelt

Y'all might think that but I've seen people, seatbeltless, rattle around like ragdolls in a car crash and then just get out totally fine except for a few bruises. Then someone I know who was wearing a seatbelt and going 5 under the limit got dinked, only the bumper needed to be replaced, and now she's on crutches for the rest of her life and was in a wheelchair for a long time. Car accidents are like the shittiest, most weighted-odds gambling game ever.

If you're speeding and taking a selfie by taking off your seat belt and leaning over the middle console, I'd water that your chances of dying are pretty fucking high seeing as you're ignoring the road, aren't able to steer, and are in the absolute worst position for safety features since the middle of your dashboard typically has no airbags.

Well, most people don't do much steering while sitting in the back seat...

Yep, I completely whiffed that detail, my bad. Also, unfotunately you can't delete quote on mobile, sorry about that.

Seatbelts do put the odds heavily in your favour though.

I mean yeah, there's no reason not to wear your seatbelt, just sayin' it's weird.

Indeed, you're around eight times more likely to die in an accident if you're not wearing one.

If there are two things I always remind people its wear your helmet and fasten your seatbelt, My helmet has saved me a number off times while snowboarding that has turned a life threatening wipeout into a minor inconvenience.

If you think your helmet makes you look uncool then get a cooler helmet!

Also, for the love of god, look up how safe your car is in a collision, and then drive with that in mind. For example, my Hyundai Elantra 2002 sedan is a death trap, so I'm very cautions with it because I'll probably get seriously injured or die in a collision with it (not everyone has the luxury of buying a safe car - I got this for $500 from a family member, I need transportation). I'm driving an iron maiden, I'm not going to zip inbetween lanes like an asshole. Just because you wear a seatbelt doesn't mean you won't die in a crash, but it's still a much better option than becoming a projectile out your windshield or into your passengers.

Another thing that should be mentioned is that they were speeding. Seriously, dont fucking speed. Not only does it make the road less safe for you, it makes it less safe for everyone else too. Teenagers in particular speed so fucking much. Practically all of my friends just didn't give a shit about speed limits back in high school. In a college ethics class this year 4/5ths of the class admitted to going 10-20+ over at all times. Either follow the flow of traffic or follow the limit.

Depending on where you are, a lot of places set the speed limits way under the typical speed people travel on the road. Which is why a fair amount of people speed, as some of them are unreasonably low. In some cases it can be dangerous to follow the speed limit since everyone else around you is going faster than it. However, that's not to say, "go at any speed you want" going unreasonably fast on a road that isn't really graded or meant for it is just as deadly.

That's why I said "either follow the flow of traffic or follow the limit". I'm aware that going much slower than the rest of traffic is dangerous, but speeding is still a dangerous epidemic regardless of cases like these. I'm not sure how the statistics shake out in terms of how excessive the speeding in individual crashes is, but speeding typically accounts for 30% of all traffic fatalities, and the percentage only increases in younger age brackets.

As a car accident survivor who is very lucky to even be here, my advice is this: ALWAYS wear your seat belt! If I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt at the time of my accident (I was a small child at the time) I very likely would've went through the windshield of my mom's van and would not have survived. Stories like this are the exact reason I always tell my friends to make sure they drive safely and wear their seatbelts. This is why my parents make sure my sisters wear their seatbelts if they go anywhere. It only takes 30 seconds to put your seatbelt on, please take those 30 extra seconds to make sure you are wearing it.

Youve never done anything that could've killed you? Maybe go outside more instead of spouting edgy zings against dead kids.

TBH any situation where you're taking your seatbelt off is probably also one where you're at a very high risk for collision. If you ever do it you're making a really fucking foolish decision.

Technically, going out for a drive could kill you. It's not necessarily your stupidity that puts you at risk, it's other people's. Hell, one day a year or so back I was almost hit by dumb-asses who ran a stop-sign twice. In one day. Within an hour and a half of each other.

Uhh, have you ever walked outside? Because going outside alone holds the risk of getting you killed. Also I wouldn't call any of my hobbies weird or wrong. Rock climbing isn't a weird hobby, neither is hiking or snowboarding/skiing, oh and I take my dog for walks, that's pretty normal too. But all of these hobbies have a higher chance of getting me killed than just sitting at home at the computer so guess they're weird and I'm doing something wrong?

I feel like this is a common risk. She could have just have easily been taking her seat belt off to take of her coat. Despite this not being the point it makes me think about the countless amount of people who record snapchat videos or take photos while driving a vehicle. It fucking pisses me off so much when I see a post from someone while they are driving. They don't understand it is not just their life they are potentially ruining.

It's a common risk with a simple solution: keep your fucking seat belt on.

Sometimes you have to take your seat belt off for few seconds. 99% of the times I've taken my seat belt off is to reset my over-reactive seat belt crash lock before it constricts me like a python.

Sometimes I don't wear a seatbelt because people keep removing them for some reason. I've been inside cabs that have the seatbelts removed for some odd reason. Also in certain (shitty) places, people judge you for taking your time to wear the seatbelt. I've had people call me out for putting it on because they believe that putting on the seatbelt means that you think they're shitty drivers and might get you killed because of their poor driving skills and what not.

maybe people should slow the fuck down and stop traveling faster than the posted limit then???

Speed limits are supposed to be set based on how fast people feel comfortable to travel on that road, and how the road is graded. But more often than not, they're set lower than that, and sometimes it's due to the county being greedy and wanting a speed trap. Most people want to travel at a comfortably fast speed to get to their destination. Most of the danger of speeding is people not being focused, or driving like an idiot as you said. You can safely go fast, as shown in Germany's Autobahn system. They also have a much more stricter structure for getting a license which helps immensely in creating a much safer driving environment.

Why would you put literally any value in their stupidity? The fact they take offense to it would be more than reason enough for me to believe that they are in fact shit drivers. A good driver would want their passengers as safe as possible regardless of any implications it might give about their driving ability.