Chevrolet’s Buckle to Drive could save countless of lives

Chevrolet just introduced a simple feature that has the potential to save countless lives, especially teenagers. The feature is named Buckle to Drive and will be a standard safety feature in the 2020 Traverse. If you think this is the ordinary seatbelt reminder feature, then you need to read further.

Seatbelt alarm is a relatively old feature nowadays; you can find it in most modern vehicles in the local market. A seatbelt reminder is the annoying sound the vehicle makes when your car reaches certain speeds (usually 20 km/h) without your seatbelt buckled. Other drivers bypass this by buckling the seatbelts behind them so the alarm won’t go off.

Available through the car’s Teen Driver mode, the Buckle to Drive feature does more than a seatbelt alarm. When activated, this feature will prevent the driver from shifting out of 'park' when seatbelts aren’t buckled. It is designed not to allow the driver from shifting out of ‘park’ for up to 20 seconds. In addition, the driver will also hear an audible alert and a message on the instrument cluster that reads “Buckle seat belt to shift.”

Seatbelts are designed to lower your risk of hitting the hard surfaces of your car, such as your steering wheel. Buckling your seatbelt, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is the number one action drivers can take to protect themselves in a collision. Sadly, teenagers hold the lowest rates of seatbelt use, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the majority of teenagers involved in fatal crashes are unbuckled.

These reports alarmed Chevrolet and pushed the company to conduct extensive research. The study was conducted by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety and it found out that because of the feature, seatbelt usage has increased by 16% compared to the standard seatbelt reminder.