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Cars today are remarkably safe compared to years ago. According to NSC Injury Facts, there were around 18 vehicle-related deaths per 100 million miles driven in the 1920s. In the 1960s, even with much faster cars, that rate dipped 5.5 per 100 million miles driven.
Today, that number is down to just over 1 per 100 million miles driven, and as self-driving vehicles continue to become more common, that number will likely keep on dropping.
While that is undoubtedly a good thing, some people want to improve their odds even more. One way that you can do that is by choosing where in the vehicle to sit. Lucas Waldenback is the co-founder of Zutobi, which is an educational driver’s ed program.
He spoke with Reader’s Digest, and said:
“The rear middle seat is the safest place for most passengers.”
This is largely according to a 2008 study that showed that all other things being equal (specifically, wearing seatbelts), those who sit in the center seat in the back have a 46% higher chance of survival than those in the front.
Even when compared to other passengers in the back seats, which are safer than the front, the center seat has a 13% better chance of surviving than anyone else.
This is pretty intuitive since the middle seat in the back is as far away as possible from other vehicles or dangers. In addition, vehicles today are designed with crumple zones that ensure the car will smash into specific areas during a crash. These areas are, of course, away from the passengers.
The crumple zones are made specifically to avoid having the car’s metal and other hard materials go into an area where a person is. So, by avoiding the entire passenger area, it keeps the risk even further away from that middle seat.
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Unfortunately, even though the middle seat in the back is the safest in the car, people sitting there may actually have higher rates of injury or death. This is because, according to a 2022 study, people in the back seat are five times more likely not to wear their seatbelts.
There is a deadly belief out among the public that you don’t need to wear your seatbelt in the back seat, but that is not at all the case. Wearing your seatbelt is the one thing above all else that will reduce your chances of death or serious injury in an accident.
Stay safe out there!
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