Kate Hackett
We all know to wear your seatbelt. Seatbelts save lives! It’s been drilled into us since childhood! Life before seatbelts was a DANGEROUS and WILD time and we do not want to go back!
So why a 21-year-old and a 24-year-old refused to wear their belts is, honestly, beyond me, but here we go.
Redditor Funny_bob shared a story over on r/ChoosingBeggars about how his friends kids needed a ride to the airport, so he offered to give them a lift. But pretty quickly the young men set the entire kind gesture AFLAME by refusing to buckle up.
The Redditor was like, “aw hell naw” and refused to risk his license and their safety to spare them the inconvenience of having to wear a belt. Cue: the drama! Did they make their flights? No. No they did not.
Check out the wild story below.
After he explains the trip, funsy_bob goes on:
I turned up in the morning, loaded up their gear, the sons both in the car and said goodbye to their parents, and we took off. drove a few miles up the freeway and my seatbelt alert starts pinging. Son 1 in the front seat had taken off his belt. I asked him to put it on, he goes “nah, I don’t do seatbelts”.
So I pulled over. Looked back at the other son in the back seat (which didn’t have alarms) and sure enough, he’d taken off his belt too.
Then the arguing started. I was blunt as I could be that I’m not risking my license and my money so they could get a free lift I didn’t care one way or another about.
Roughly as follows, paraphrased because it was years ago but they were both in on it.
Me: I’m not moving the car unless the belts are on. I’ve been fined once before, not doing it again.
Son1: I told you, I don’t do seatbelts. Dad’s OK with it.
Me: I’m not. And you Son2, yours on too. Not moving until they’re on.
Son1: Do you have any idea how dangerous they are in an accident?
Me: blink
Son1 then puts his behind him and clicks it in.
Me: No, belt goes around you. doesn’t count.
Son1: It’ll turn off the alarm. go. you’ll see. We need to get going
Me: We can, when you put the belt on. I don’t give a shit about the alarm. I care it’s a six hundred buck fine if you two don’t have belts on.
Son2: Come on, we’ll be late
Me: Your flight’s not for another hour and a half. Belts on
Son1 then calls his dad. Complains we’ve stopped, dad asks why, Son1 explains, then his dad tells him to just put the belt on. Son1 says OK, but didn’t notice I’d heard his dad’s side too, and said his dad says I need to get a move on.
Me: Not. Until. Belts. Are. On.
This goes back and forth, to the point I will be late to work if I don’t get going. Son1 is all “fine then, turn around, I’ll get dad to drive”.
Me: Belts on then.
Son1: No. I’ve told you already.
Me: then we’re not moving.
I get out my phone and browse idly showing I’m not moving until their seatbelts go on. Son1 phones his dad again, His dad sounds really pissed but agrees to pick them up. Both sons get out, take their bags, one slams the door and boot and I drive off, choosy beggars left behind.
I get to work, then get a phone call that Son2 left his main luggage in my car and they want it dropped off at the airport urgently. They’re flying out soon and they need it NOW. I tell them to get a taxi and I’ll meet them out back of my work. They decide to argue it’s my responsibility to get them the luggage and again, argue the point. half an hour later one turns up in a taxi to get the other’s luggage. I should note here I really don’t know these guys well at all, I know one’s name for sure and think I know the other but I might have him mixed up with a cousin from the same suburb.
Later that afternoon I get a phone call from their dad that I’ve wasted his son’s tickets, they weren’t able to fly out, couldn’t re-book quickly and they’ll miss half their vacation time now, and it was all my fault for stopping for so long. I try to explain as clearly as possible that I wasn’t going to risk another huge fine AND piss off my employer just for the inconvenience of a couple of ingrateful idiots, but ended up just hanging up on him.
I’m still friends with their mother, who was the original friend of the family, but things are a bit strained between me and her husband and sons.
fwiw sons were about 21/24 at the time it happened.
Obviously wearing seatbelts is THE LAW and “[s]eat belts save lives. Nearly 15,000 lives were saved in 2017 because passengers and drivers chose to wear a seat belt. Having said that, more than 2,500 could have been saved if they wore a seat belt,” he said.
“The chances of significant injury or death are significantly reduced by buckling up. Whether it’s down the street or an hours-long road trip, always buckle up. Good news is that the seat belt use rate is 90% across the U.S. and even higher in California. But we are seeing that rate drop for rear passengers, especially when using ride-hailing services,” as Tim Weisberg, a spokesman for the California Office of Traffic Safety, told Bored Panda.
Fellow Redditors thought these grown men were teens. They were not.
And people were appalled with their father’s response.
We could also just call it what it is:
