Belt up

The Department for Transport has launched a new, hard-hitting, £2.6 million THINK! campaign explaining exactly why we should always use a seat belt

A new TV ad shows in graphic slow-motion how people are killed in crashes at every-day speeds from lethal internal injuries. The TV ad shows a car crash, but the message applies to people who drive vans and lorries; and the figures show why. Surveys suggest that 80 per cent of bus drivers; 70 per cent of lorry drivers; and 28 per cent of van drivers were observed not using a belt – the equivalent figure for car drivers is only 6 per cent.
    
These figures don’t tell the whole story – another survey found that 28 per cent say they don’t always use a seat belt. They don’t disagree with wearing a seat belt at all; they just do it sometimes, and not others.

Bad habits
So, nearly everybody wears a seat belt when driving a car, but some don’t when they are a front seat passenger. Many more go un-belted when they are in a back seat. Some people use belts on long journeys, but not short ones; some when they are going fast, but not when they don’t expect to do so. Some people put a seat belt on at night – because they think driving in the dark is dangerous; others leave them off at night, because they are enjoying themselves and don’t want to feel restricted. Most drivers insist that their children buckle up, but some leave their own belt off when they are driving for work. And there are people who wear their belt in a car, but leave it off when they are in a lorry or van.
    
Road Safety Minister Jim Fitzpatrick says: “Every day someone dies simply because they are not wearing a seat belt. That’s a tragic waste that could be avoided if everyone took the simple step of belting up whenever they got in a car.
    
“If you have a crash without wearing a seat belt you actually experience three crashes, even at everyday speeds like 30mph. First, your car crashes and stops. Second - because there’s nothing to stop you moving - your body carries on and hits the inside of the car. Third, you stop but your internal organs keep moving, hitting the inside of your body and tearing under the force of the impact. I hope this hard-hitting new campaign will help everyone realise that they are risking their life whenever they get in a car and don’t put their seat belt on.”
    
The risk is the same wherever you sit in a vehicle, and whatever kind of vehicle it is – on whatever sort of journey. In fact, the department’s research has found that people driving for work have a higher risk of accidents per mile driven than those who drive for leisure. They drive under pressure, they speed, they succumb to tiredness, they are distracted by mobile phone calls – and some don’t wear their seat belts. So they are over-represented in road casualties too. 


Legal requirements
The TV ad shows somebody dying in a car crash: un-belted van drivers are dying in just the same way. There is a simple rule for us all – if your seat has a belt, you are required to wear it. There are very few exceptions – there used to be one for van drivers, but it only applies now to those making deliveries less than 50 metres apart. The rules are enforced – the police issue about 250,000 fixed penalty notices every year.
 

    
Besides the legal requirement, a seat belt is about the simplest life saver available to motorists. You are twice as likely to die in a crash if you are not wearing a seat belt and a new analysis of casualty figures shows about one life each day could be saved in Britain if everyone always wore a belt. Seat belts have prevented an estimated 60,000 deaths and 670,000 serious injuries since 1983 when seat belts were made mandatory for drivers and front seat passengers. But research has shown that a quarter of vehicle occupants who have died in crashes were not wearing a belt. More significantly, it has been shown that at least 300 would have survived if they had.
    
A simple explanation for these figures is that crashes at every-day speeds kill. The TV ad shows fatal injuries that really do happen too often at speeds around 30 mph. The new campaign includes television, radio, cinema, ambient and online advertising, is based on detailed research into people’s seat belt wearing habits. It makes a compelling case – everybody, and especially all those who drive for work, can make every journey safer, with a seatbelt. As the TV ad asks – ‘What is stopping you? Always wear a seat belt!’