You could tell him that you aren't going anywhere with him unless he buckles up. When you get in a wreck with someone that isn't buckled up, there's a very real possibility of them pinballing around the car seriously injuring people that are buckled up. So I really wouldn't want to be in a car with an unbuckled person no matter what. I used to have several friends that that didn't buckle up and I flat out said I wasn't going anywhere with them unless they buckled up. Thankfully for me they valued my friendship enough to comply.

There was a movie a few years ago, a documentary, about the films the insurance industry used to produce in order to scare people straight. It has really graphic footage of car wrecks. I'd suggest sitting down with him and watching it.

Wish I could remember the name, but I'm sure someone here will. "Highway of Horrors," or something like that.

I also have a book of crime scene footage from car wrecks in the 50s, before shoulder belts, and before most people wore even lap belts. I bought it because it was $3.00 and sealed in plastic. It was cheap and I couldn't thumb through it in the store, so I couldn't help myself. I opened it once, then stowed it away. I'm happy to send it to you. Email me if you want to re-re-gift it to him.

You could also consistently follow him around and call the highway patrol on him, but the friendship probably wouldn't survive it.

I watched a class similar to what mudpuppie describes in my driver's ed class called "Red Asphalt." Grim.

Hell's Highway.

But seriously, CF, let me send you this book. I'm afraid I'll die in my sleep and someone will find it in my house and think weird things about me.

Hit the binders VERY fast and hard followed by "Wow I just missed that cat!"

Yeah, we had to watch "Red Asphalt" in driver's ed way back in the 70's, too. Now, as it turns out, there's a version available for sale. Here's what you do:

1)Invite your friend over for dinner.
2)Serve rare roast beef.
3)Halfway through dinner, tell him that you got this great new DVD and can't wait to show it to him.
4)Fire up the DVD and find an excuse to leave the room. "Oh, we're out of horseradish. I think I have another jar in the kitchen." That sort of thing.

HBO is currently running a documentary series on coma, a very large percentage of which injuries are caused by motor vehicle accidents where people's skulls strike things. In most of these cases, there isn't a full recovery. In a large percentage of these cases, the phrase "persistent vegatative state" is aspirational, one year to eighteen months later. Watching 30 minutes of this, if you can get him in front of it for that long, is an amazing inducement to protect the hell out of your braincase.

You could also post his email address here, and we can all email him to tell him what an idiot he is.

Because he is.

I never put too much stock in these goreporn videos people are mentioning. Yeah they shock and gross people out, but I have doubts about them changing anyone's mind about this kind of thing. Maybe that's just me though.

You could tell him that you aren't going anywhere with him unless he buckles up.

That may work. It just requires that I work up the cajones. I'll see what I can muster up.

I also have a book of crime scene footage from car wrecks
....Red Asphalt...

I'm not sure that would work. On any normal person yes (like I said, my dad's horror stories and grisly photos worked on me, he did the same with drinking and driving), but my nickname for my good friend is "Joe Cool." You could present him with the best facts, clear as day, and his response would be "so?"

We went to Disney after graduating high school. I have been there many many times before and wore a tshirt and always made sure to keep hydrated (learned that the hard way after nearly passing out one year). My friend, however, wore his usual four shirts (undershirt, undershirt, tshirt, poloshirt. Don't ask.) When I made a friendly suggestion that it was probably not a good idea and he might be better off cutting down on a few layers, he would just reply "I'm fine." and just shut down communication. You can't reason with him, most of the time. He'd just bring up various relatives who "would have died had they been wearing seatbelts." It's what he always does.

However, calling the police might be an idea that works, sadly. You might not be able to reason with him, but nobody likes a $70 fine, and he only puts his seatbelt on when there are cops around...

I've got the non emergency line for the local police on speed dial. I wonder if explaining the situation would make them more apt to respond though. "My friend refuses to wear his seatbelt and I figure a good 70 fine will set him straight."

Okay, if he's so resistant to reason, and so convinced that nothing bad will ever happen to him, here's what you do.

You just say "Look, dude, I know you think you're invincible. But you're not. And if you're going to be so stupid as to put yourself in harm's way every time you get in the fucking car, well, it's too painful to be your friend. I care for you [insert alternative non-threatening guy speak here, if you like] and I'm not going to stand by while you leave yourself open to some sort of violent death like that. Sorry. Wear it, or I'm writing you off. Too painful a proposition."

If you think it would work, I second calling the cops on him. Although there's the real possibility that he might ditch you for doing something like that, once again depending on the value of your friendship.

Going back to my original point above, I've always found people that don't buckle up to be not only incredibly idiotic, but it's also a slap in the face to anyone else in the car. It's like, not only do they not care about their own safety, they don't give a shit about anyone else in the car with them. And what does that say about someone?

What it will take is his having an accident. Nothing less. That's what convinced me.

I'll spare you the freakish details of that one; suffice it to say if I'd been two inches shorter I'd have been hurled through a windshield like a fucking cannonball.

Of course, I learned that lesson at sixteen. Your friend still believes that the law of averages and the laws of physics don't apply to him. He'll know better one day, if he survives the learning experience. I wish him good luck. He's going to need it.

I agree with trondant: rolling my pickup in the dead of winter, middle of Nowhere, Alaska during the only ten minutes I had been wearing a seatbelt the entire 400 mile trip is what convinced me to wear mine all the time. I was 19.

I had been pulled over previously because a cop had seen me not wearing it, but I always managed to get it on before the cop was out of the car.

Oh, that's easy.

Tell him that someone you don't know on the internet was in a head-on collision at 65 mph and listened to the only person who didn't wear their seatbelt die in the other room. Then tell him what it felt like to watch the obituary of someone that sent you to the hospital on a local news station two days after the wreck while you drift in and out from the morphine they're shooting into you constantly (just imagine it, it's about the same). Tell the person that he was the passenger in the car that was hit and spent the least amount of time in the hospital (a week or so). Tell him how that person had to go visit his girlfriend that was driving the car that was hit in a nursing home because it was easier and less expensive to get care for her there than having a nurse live with her family for month and a half. Tell him that it isn't easy to tell the woman who was driving the car who lost one of her eyes and the use of one of her arms (and she was wearing her seatbelt) that you think she's beautiful while she screams at you to get out or figure out why your relationship didn't last long after that. Then, as a topper, have that person receive a bouquet of flowers from the other driver's family after his funeral and muster up enough courage to give a fuck.

Or, just watch one of those funny videos that they used to show me in junior high. It's cool, whatever. Ooooh, or die in an accident. One less driver in the world.

Does that help?

I don't think you can make people wear seatbelts if they don't want to and think you may be overstepping the mark to try, to be honest. You have told him how you feel, you have made the rules clear when you are driving - leave it at that. You are not responsible for other people's behaviour.

That said, anyone who drives a car without a seat best is a complete fucking idiot and those stories about people who "would have been killed if they had been wearing a seat belt" are all crap - next time he comes up with that, ask him to prove it or at least provide some details. My bet is he can't. People have every right to be idiots, but they should at least be informed about it.

Sorry, but even my father who refused to wear a motorcycle helmet before my accident (even when I was a small child behind him with a helmet on) put on his seatbelt afterward (he thought it was a sign of a near-fascist state). It's just fucking stupid not to do anything you can to preserve yourself if you want to live.

or, what dg said.

My advice is this - stop trying to control your friend's behavior. Simply willing someone to change is not enough to do it. Your efforts aren't going to come to much, especially if you're going out of your way to point it out. You obviously are a good friend and care about his safety, but he's probably not going to see it that way, especially since he's "Mr. Cool."

Back when I used to be a smoker (and yes, it's quite nice to be able to say that), I had several friends who disapproved of my smoking. Some of them didn't say much about it, said they'd prefer I didn't for my health, but only if it came up in a way that they had to comment.

A couple people took the persistence approach of bringing it up, refusing to be around me if I smoked (beyond avoiding the smoke itself, which I found reasonable enough) and refusing to stop to buy smokes if we were in their car. It made me like them less as people, because it had become less about my health and more about their opinion, and manipulating me into their preferred lifestyle choices.

Similarly, I have a friend who never wears his seatbelt. If people tell him to wear one "or the highway", he doesn't go, or he takes his own car. I put my two cents in once and dropped it. Because nagging is a really bad way to get a point across.

I've found in my life, self-destructive behavior will continue, no matter how many times you show pictures of old ladies dying emphysema, kids who've lost their hands to fireworks, pictures of alcoholics' livers, the teeth of people who don't floss, etc. It doesn't matter if you're talking about smoking, drinking, drugs, poor dental hygiene or refusal to wear a seatbelt - people change their behavior when they're ready, and it usually comes from within. Yes, a near-miss might scare him into it, but you can't make that happen. At most you'll annoy him, maybe change his behavior when he's around you for a while, but you can't give him that "a-ha" moment when he realizes what a fool he's been.

Both of my last two cars have had a loud, annoying DING DING DING noise that sounds until you buckle up. His next car will probably sort him out.

Ah, that's easy to solve - just run the seat belt around behind the seat and plug the buckle in. Millions of taxi drivers can't be wrong.

Reiterating what everyone else has already said: There's no rational or emotional argument that is going to change Joe Cool's mind or behavior, so you will need to change yours.

Or if that's too hard: Find a time when he is about 10 minutes away from arriving at home. Call his family and say that you're the trauma surgeon and you (need to know if he's allergic to anaesthesia before you can start to stitch him back up) (want to talk about the Gift Of Life, and his wishes for organ donation) (make up something dire). With luck, his family will be charging out the door in full emotional melt-down mode on the way to the ER at the same time he pulls up unaware, and hilarity ensues.

(sleepy_pete: holy crap that's utterly hair-raising. And Yaaaay Sasshat, the ex-smoker!)

Triode! Where have you been all my life? And, yep, eight months and counting!

Be passive aggressive. Call the cops before he picks you up and arrange for him to conveniently get a ticket every time he drives with you in the car. That's a pretty self-limiting situation.

Time his commute home. Take a day off. Park at the end of his street, and when you see him coming, shift into drive, pick up speed, and ram him, head on.

Oh, and wear your seatbelt.

what dg said.

You might get him to wear a seatbelt while you are in the car with him. I, for one, had not heard of this "pinballing around the car" injuring the other passengers thing. But you'll never be able to get him to wear it on his own.

A good friend's sister was in a bad car accident a couple of years ago. She was wearing a seatbelt. She still ended up with major head trauma. She has limited use of the right side of her body and can't walk. In the hospital, she told the nurse she wished they had let her die instead.
He never wears a seatbelt.

I guess my point is, as your friend, he should really do it for your sake when you drive/ride together, but he might never do it for his own sake.

One last thing: personally, I find it fun to drive around without wearing a seatbelt. But I certainly would not want to cause injury to anyone else.

Have you tried being gentle? Almost sappy gentle? Something like, "Dude, you're my best friend. If anything happened to you, I'd feel like shit. I'm always worried that if we get in an accident or stop short you're going to bash your head and I'll have to either watch you suffer or go through life without you. Can you just fucking humor me on this, OK?"

Changing your approach so he doesn't automatically get defensive might help. Make it sound like a personal favor for which you'd be grateful.

My brother had one, maybe two seatbelt tickets in the past. Now he has young people who will let him know pronto if he doesn't follow rules... or if his breath is bad or his hair looks ugly:) Sometimes that's what it takes.

Thanks for all your advice guys.
:)