Hundreds die without seatbelts

THURSDAY 20 AUGUST 2009

Fifty years after the invention of the modern car seatbelt, 400 people are still being killed each year because they fail to "belt up". The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa) says Volvo's three-point belt design has saved one million lives worldwide.

But too many people are still ignoring safety warnings. The Department for Transport said campaigns and on-the-spot fines were hoped to encourage more seatbelt use. Volvo did not patent its three-point belt design, created in 1959, to encourage other carmakers to install the safety measure. As a result seatbelts were widely fitted from the 1970s.

However, Rospa's road safety manager Duncan Vernon said lives were still being "needlessly lost" despite the invention's success. "Wearing a seatbelt is one way you can drastically increase your chances of survival in a crash, even if it's just a short journey or you don't think it's necessary to put one on," he said. "As we get new drivers every week, it's important that everyone hears the message about how seatbelt wearing is important."

The first government campaigns in the 1970s featured Jimmy Saville imploring motorists to: "Clunk the car door. Click the seat belt. Even if you are just going round the corner: Clunk Click Every Trip." By 1982, it had succeeded in convincing about 40% of car drivers and front-seat passengers to wear seatbelts.

Younger drivers

Department for Transport research puts the number of people killed annually while not wearing a seatbelt at about 565 and estimates close to 370 would have survived if they had been restrained. Its research showed the peak age for not wearing seatbelts was 21 to 25.

A spokesman said: "Road deaths are at an all time low in the UK but we know that a life could be saved every day if all drivers and passengers belted up every time they got in a car. "That is why the government runs hard-hitting advertising campaigns highlighting the dangers of not wearing a seatbelt and has recently doubled the fixed penalty for not wearing a seatbelt [to £60]." Its latest campaign, launched last year at a cost of £2.6m, shows graphic images of the damage that can be caused to internal organs in road crashes when people do not wear seatbelts.

The maximum fine in the courts for not wearing a seatbelt is £500.