[Coda]

The most common reason people resist safety equipment is because of a perception of it making things worse instead of better, either because it's uncomfortable during normal non-emergency activity or because you still feel pain when it gets used in an emergency.

Older people especially tend to be stubborn about this kind of thing, which results in them receiving more serious injuries when they DO have accidents. (It used to be that young adults did the same thing, and they still do when it comes to helmets, but seatbelts in particular have become such a default part of American driving culture that the resistance has mostly faded.)