This may sound hypocritical to some, but I'll say it anyway...

Speeding and more 'extreme' forms of driving when using seat belts is less dangerous than NOT wearing a seat belt in a ~30mph accident. (My opinion and generally true if you look at the statistics of injuries at different speeds with and without belts)

Most (at least the ones I know) don't take serious risks like trying to drive over 100mph in heavy traffic. I can honestly say I drive fast, but with intelligence. Those that drag race at night on long straight roads are at least showing a small amount of smarts by doing so on uncrowded roads during light to no traffic hours.

Driving down to the car wash or 'only three miles down the street' is not truely a bad thing if there are no cross streets, BUT... there is always the 'other' driver who is not paying attention, crosses the center line and hits you head on. Even at only 25 mph for each car, that's a combined collision speed of 50 mph. I don't know about you, but I think at 50 mph, if you hit a solid wall or barrier, you would be hurt quite badly, if not ejected from the vehicle. Then there are those people who have had their lower jaw removed by the steering wheel from a frontal impact.

I don't fasten my safety belts not out of fear but out of prevention. Safety belts are not their to remove fear, but to do a job in case of an accident. If you don't have it on it can't do it's job.

Sorry for the rant... if you still feel seat belts are 'optional' then I can only hope you have some other trait that keeps you out of the Darwin Awards.

Cheers!