During a long car journey, the sitting position can cause some discomfort, even with regular breaks. Yet it is oh so dangerous to adopt this posture that many passengers take regularly.
Summer is coming and with it the time for great weekend or holiday departures is approaching. Before enjoying a well-deserved holiday, there remains the pitfall of the road and its long, sometimes very long journeys on the holiday route. For the driver, fatigue then awaits but for the passengers too. However, there is no question of unfastening the seat belts or even less of taking a position that does not respect the safety instructions.
However, it is a habit, most often observed in the summer on the road to vacation: the front passenger of a vehicle, tired of not being able to stretch his legs for several hours already, raises his legs to stretch them on the table on board. The position is more comfortable and even encourages you to take a nap while the kilometers scroll by on the counter.
Facial trauma, fractures … The gendarmerie gives the alarm signal before the summer
So that’s what makes the other occupants of the cabin jealous. This would be to ignore the danger to which such a position exposes the occupant seated next to the driver. Already, being in a recumbent or semi-recumbent position causes the safety belt to lose effectiveness, the strap no longer being adjusted correctly to properly play its role of restraining the body in the event of an impact. But above all, having your feet resting on the dashboard can have disastrous consequences if an accident suddenly causes the airbag to open.
In the majority of vehicles, the passenger airbag is nestled above the glove box, right where the passenger rests his legs to relax them. And, as the National Gendarmerie quite often reminds us through road safety messages, “in the event of an impact, when the airbag is triggered, the legs are thrown towards the windshield and the knees towards the face. […] The passenger is disarticulated and the consequences are serious: trauma to the face, particularly to the jaws, fracture of the legs, major injuries to the rib cage…” To get an idea of the impact felt in the legs, it is necessary to bear in mind that a car’s airbag inflates at a speed of 300 km/h!
This position can therefore possibly cost you your life in the event of an accident. However, like other bad habits observed in the car, it is not reprehensible since no article of the Highway Code prohibits putting your feet on the dashboard. You now know why it is however strongly discouraged.