20 Years of Seat Belt Enforcement (II)

ROAD SAFETY BY Jonas Agwu

Today, I hope to draw the curtain on my focus on the 20 years of seat belt enforcement. But just as I was contemplating on this second part, David, my course mate paid me an unscheduled visit and gave the Corps thumbs up for the culture shock that has come to stay. Despite his appeasing thumbs up for the Federal Road Safety Corps for this feat, I equally shared with him my personal reservations on the need to rejig seatbelt enforcement.

As I told you last week, the success owes a lot to the media support which led to the rush for seat belt purchase in the market by those whose cars lacked this life saving facility. So within a short while of the decisive enforcement on the use of front occupant seat belts nationwide, about 90 per cent compliance level was recorded all over the country which erased earlier fears expressed by leadership prior to the commencement of enforcement.

I remember vividly that when we were about to start, the United Kingdom had run and enforced the seat belt campaign for over 22 years with a report showing that millions of pounds was voted and was still being voted to raise the level of consciousness and achieve a greater level of impact. In contrast, we barely managed with meagre resources single-handedly provided by Boboye Oyeyemi at the initial time. Till date, despite support provided solely by the government, as well as a select few road safety players, we need increased funds, as well as partnership to drive and sustain the tempo of the campaign.

Twenty years down the line, there is the need to take another look at the issue of seat belt usage in the county to suit the evolving time and minimise fatalities. Although the novel initiative remains a key success story for the Corps, the pace of adoption for other users has been epileptic all because of what an observer called the absence of sustained enforcement and re-enforced awareness. 

We therefore acknowledge that there are gaps to address to firm the novelty. First, is the fact that we are yet to navigate to the enforcement of the usage by front seat passengers. Secondly, the preponderance of the category/type of commercial vehicles numbering about 4,867,217 which mostly serve the transportation needs in the absence of an effective intermodal system, as well as effective mass transit system is a challenge.

Thirdly, despite the World Health Organisation’s alarm that road traffic injuries are a leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5 to 29 years, we are yet to frontally address this. Records show that globally around 186,300 children under 18 years die from road traffic crashes annually. Yet child safety seat, sometimes called infant safety seat, child restraint system, child seat, baby seat, car seat or a booster designed specifically to protect children from injury or death during collisions is yet to be enforced although there have been a couple of campaigns such as the joint campaign with the Nigerian Society of Engineers and Mobil Oil.

Based on these, I do believe that the time to do a post mortem on the impact is now so as to up the ante in order to firm up strategies to redress crash trends. For reminders, the seat belt campaign for a significant number of users did not and still does not require buying or fixing anything in the vehicles. Therefore it did not place any financial burden on either the vehicle owner or the passengers. All that the Corps asked was for occupants to strap themselves while in motion as contained in the National Road Traffic Regulations.

But while we consider tinkering with this thought, it is interesting to bring you up to speed with developments in the United Kingdom where despite the level of success recorded and the amount invested in raising the level of awareness, government is being urged to reinforce seat belt messages, as well as introduce penalty points to drive compliance rate.

Interestingly, seat belt usage by seating position in the United Kingdom will marvel you. For starters, driver usage is ranked 97 per cent while front seat passenger stands at 96 per cent. Rear seat passenger ranking is 92 per cent. Yet, there are still concerns on the need to stiffen penalties for defaulters borne out of the results of an observation survey, carried out in the autumn of 2021 which found out that more than five per cent of drivers were not wearing seat belts in all vehicle types.

The figure for front seat passengers is almost similar as it found out that non-compliance rates rose to more than eight percent among rear seat passengers. Despite this lamentations, seat belt wearing is high as estimates in 2021 stands at 94. 8 per cent for drivers, 94.6 for front seat passengers and 91.5 for rear seat passengers. Among car drivers, the compliance rates were slightly greater at 97.2 per cent for drivers, 96.8 per cent for front seat passengers and 92.2 per cent for rear seat passengers.

However, with data showing that 23 per cent of car occupant fatalities in 2020 were not wearing a seatbelt, the Department for Transport says those who do not wear a seatbelt are ‘disproportionately likely to be killed in road collisions’. This underscores my call for a post mortem since seatbelts are probably the single biggest life-saving device ever introduced into vehicles and therefore requires a reinforcement of the messages while enforcement must be stepped up.

The current spate of crashes, as well as the type of vehicles being used for commercial transportations raises fundamental issues and the need to roll out new awareness campaign strategies, as well as increased fines regimes which I focused on a couple of weeks ago. Truth is that seat belts have been adjudged to be the most effective traffic safety device for the prevention of death and injury in the event of a crash.

Wearing a seat belt can reduce risk of crash injuries by 50 per cent, according to the Global National Safety Council, especially in the face of rising in-vehicle technology advancements with high-tech distractions and the need to put in place machinery to ensure that in the event of a crash, minimum level of injuries and fatalities are recorded. That is the all-encompassing mandate.

In conclusion, although a significant number of drivers and front seat passengers now wear seatbelts, sustaining the level of compliance requires a tougher penalty as further improvement holds the key to crash reduction in the face of rising crashes at night, as well as rising head-on collisions. We must accept the fact that the seat belt enforcement was ground-breaking as a strategy in preventing death and injury on our roads and should be seen as a priority to government, drivers and as a public health issue.

We can pop the Champagne but truth be told, the current pittance called fines for defaulters does not emphasise the seriousness of the risk of not complying. Seatbelts are vital when a crash occurs. New technology offers the prospects of avoiding many crashes. Before we adopt these new technologies, we need to seek public buy-in which requires mere strapping and not spending any cash to stay alive. To all those who played vital roles, I say please the time to return to the trenches is now.