Is it possible to be ejected from a vehicle while wearing seat belts?

I have never worked a traffic accident, where a person was ejected, while wearing a seatbelt.

All ejections were caused by a lack of clicked seatbelts.

Unlikely. Depends on the speeds of the involved vehicles and the angle and point of the collision.

Under very rare circumstances a person can be ejected while wearing a functional seatbelt. The accidents are rollovers. I have survives two- and had I not been holding on to something else in addition to wearing a seatbelt the violent forces could have tossed me.

To see a good re-creation of how this can happen watch this video after the first minute it will show how the forces work.

NOTE: I must stress that if I had not been wearing a seatbelt during those two rollovers holding on to anything would have been useless. I would likely have been thrown in the first flip and the car would have rolled over me. In one accident, the passenger of the car that hit us was not wearing a seatbelt and he was ejected then crushed by the car he was riding in. He died in the hospital on Christmas day. I think of him every year.

@Dog That’s a pretty detailed reconstruction, an impressive analysis.
It surprises me that the belts of that passenger look like got pretty loose, do you think they malfunctioned or get stretched from the stress?

I was wondering the same thing. How could the lap belt have stretched or been extended an extra foot or two?

@dabbler @Charles Many of the retractable seat belts are designed to lock in front or rear impact collisions.

In a rollover the mechanism often fluxes in and out of lock- allowing the belt to unreel as if someone was putting it on.

Rollovers are an entirely different type of collision. The forces pull from many directions in a short amount of time which leaves the occupant very vulnerable. There have been proposals of four-point seat belts in cars but given the cost versus the chance of rollover it has not been done.

Wow, sure if they become unlocked I can see how catastrophe can happen fast!

I should clarify- they do not unlock from the click end. They unravel as if you are putting them on. When hit in front or back they lock from the momentum and get tight.

Understood, the part that releases from the reel.
And I know that if you jerk the belt some inertial system will lock it but I see what you mean amidst all that tossing around it could slacken enough to unlock for a moment and next moment pull out way too much way too fast.

@dabbler Whew, I am glad I was clear. :)