An Exhibition of Seats Taken From Deadly Car Crashes

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An Exhibition of Seats Taken From Deadly Car Crashes

The eerie spectacle aimed to raise awareness of wearing a seatbelt.

"The Survivors" expo in central Bucharest

This article originally appeared on VICE Romania

Earlier this month, the Romanian police launched an eerie awareness campaign about the life-saving qualities of the seat belt. 15 car seats were placed in central Bucharest, all taken from wrecks of cars in which people lost their lives because they weren't wearing a seat belt. The seats are still stained, but the passengers sitting in them at the time of the accident survived because they did remember to wear their seat belts.

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The aim of the exhibition is to reduce the number of traffic-related deaths—Romania has the second highest number of deadly traffic accidents in the European Union. According to the police, about eight lives are lost on the Romanian roads every day because people can't be bothered to wear a belt, forget about it, or actually tie it behind the seat to fool the car's sensors.

Each seat in the exhibition comes with a corny title celebrating the virtues of the seat belt, and a heartbreaking story from the survivor of the crash. Like this one:

"I wish it had been me instead of Cristi and his brother Vali. They were young and full of life. Cristi had just moved to Bucharest and his brother was living with their parents in another city. They had hung out together over the weekend at Christi's, and then we drove Vali back to their parents. They were both tired. Traffic was pretty slow, so Cristi told Vali to relax and leave his seat belt. Suddenly we went off-road, I still don't know why. I yelled at them, but there was no one left to hear me—we hit a concrete wall."

Depending on how decent your Romanian is, you can read more stories here.

”The Little Survivor” – Seat from a mini

”The Chair of a Careful Man” – Seat from a sedan

”Hail to the Seatbelt” – Seat from a minivan

”The Seatbelt Saves” – Seat from a sedan

”The Only One Who was Saved” – Seat from a sedan

”The Big Protector” – Seat from a service truck

”Protecting the Driver” – Seat from a sedan

”The Lucky Guy Who wore the Belt” – Seat from an SUV

”The Hero with a Seatbelt” – Seat from a luxury car

”Surviving the Summer” – Seat from a convertible

”Protected” – Seat from a sedan

”Passenger’s Favorite” – Seat from an SUV

”A Belt to Last” – Seat from a hatchback

”Wearer of the Belt” – Seat from the wreck of a sedan