'I would still see today if I had buckled up': crash victim urges seatbelt use
A Suffolk man who lost the sight in his right eye during a car crash nearly 50 years ago says he would still have his vision today if he had simply buckled up.
Graham Waspe, now 75, was a passenger in a friend's car heading to a leisure centre in Bury St Edmunds when the driver lost control on a sharp bend. Waspe, who had forgotten to fasten his seatbelt, was hurled through the windscreen as the car collided head-on with another vehicle.
The crash destroyed the only eye he could see out of — his left eye had been blinded years earlier in a childhood accident involving an arrow.
“I said three words: ‘Oh God, no,’ and then metal crunching, glass shattering. I went to cover my face with my towel, but before I could do it, I was thrown through the windscreen,” Waspe told BBC Radio Suffolk. “The old windscreens weren't laminated — they broke into sharp little nuggets. Of all the things to happen, I lost my good eye. It was unbelievable.”
Waspe had lost the sight in his left eye at age 10 while playing with arrows on a small family farm. Doctors at West Suffolk Hospital told him he was lucky to have any vision left at all. For the next 14 years, he relied on his right eye — until the crash in his mid-20s took that too.
Now blind in both eyes, Waspe has used guide dogs for decades, which he calls “marvellous.” But he still reflects bitterly on what might have been. “Had I put the belt on immediately, I would have had some bruises and I wouldn't have lost my good eye,” he said. “For people who don't believe in seatbelts, why would Formula 1 drivers wear a harness if they weren't any help? It's so important.”
His story comes as Suffolk Police intensify efforts to target drivers failing to wear seatbelts. Chief Inspector Gary Miller of the joint Roads and Armed Policing Team said: “It's hard to believe when people say they forgot. Sometimes they think it's only themselves at risk, but invariably they're the ones who suffer severe injury — and then require ambulance response, hospital care — society pays the cost because they didn't take that simple safety measure.”
Waspe called anyone who refuses to wear a seatbelt “absolutely stupid.” The crash, he said, could have been prevented with a three-second click. “I would still have some of my vision if I had done it. That haunts me every day.”
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