Okay, admit it—you sometimes skip the seatbelt in an Uber or Lyft. Not many buckle up when they’re hitching a ride, it turns out. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, that found the majority of people who don’t always use seat belts skip out on ride-hailing services.
While 74 percent of passengers always use a safety belt in personal vehicles, only 57 percent of people report the same thing in a ride-share car or taxi, according to IIHS’s new survey on adult seatbelt use. The group interviewed 1,1172 people for the study.
Most people who don’t wear seatbelts do so because they think rear seats are safer. Do you see that gif up there? Does smashing your face in the front seat and flying backwards seem safe to you? It’s because it’s not.
Rear seats did were in fact safer in the 1960s-70s, but now high levels of restraint use and changed vehicle designs have narrowed the safety advantages to sitting in the back.
“For most adults, it’s still as safe to ride in the back seat as the front seat, but not if you aren’t buckled up,” Jessica Jermakian, an IIHS senior research engineer and a co-author of the study, said in a release. “That applies to riding in an Uber, Lyft or other hired vehicle, too.”
Wear your seatbelt people!