People are aware of rear seat-belts, but few follow: WHO survey

Mumbai: The tragic deaths of former chairman of Tata Sons, Cyrus Mistry, and Jehangir Pandole, are a tough awakening for people travelling on highways

Mumbai: The tragic deaths of former chairman of Tata Sons, Cyrus Mistry, and Jehangir Pandole, are a tough awakening for people travelling on highways. As Piyush Tewari, CEO and Founder, SaveLIFE Foundation, an independent agency committed to improving road safety, said, “This incident and hundreds of others occurring every day call for a serious review of the lack of implementation of the Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Act, 2019, fixing road engineering issues leading to such crashes and injuries, and embarking on a mass awareness and training campaign to ensure higher compliance with safety standards.”

Asian woman fastening seat belt in the car, safety concept (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A recent survey by World Health Organisation (WHO) in India about use of rear seat-belts revealed, while majority (70.5 %) respondents were aware of the presence of rear seat-belts in their vehicles, only some (7%) actually implemented it. Also, while law mandates the use of rear seat-belts for all vehicles, awareness and enforcement is negligible. It was also found that only 10% school buses have seat belts for children.

While 37.8% thought its usage was not mandatory, 23.9% was unaware about it. Only 27.7% of the respondents knew about the mandate. Of all the parents surveyed, 77% reported that their child sat in the rear seat without a seat-belt.

Use of rear seat-belt reduces the probability of death by 25% and injuries by 75%, a fact to bear in mind in view of the accidental death of Mistry.

Maharashtra ranked third in road accident fatalities in the country in 2021, according to the data recently released by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) recently.

As many as 1,73,860 people were reported killed in 4.22 lakh road crashes across the country, with Uttar Pradesh recording the highest with 24,711 deaths, followed by Tamil Nadu with 16,685 deaths and Maharashtra where 16,446 died.

The maximum number of traffic accident cases in states from 2020 to 2021 was reported in Tamil Nadu (from 46,443 to 57,090) followed by Madhya Pradesh (from 43,360 to 49,493), Uttar Pradesh (from 30,593 to 36,509), Maharashtra (from 24,908 to 30,086) and Kerala (from 27,998 to 33,051).

Tewari said, “In 2021, more than 1.55 lakh people were killed in road crashes across India. Each crash has to be looked into two ways: cause of crash and cause of injury in the crash. 60% of all fatal crashes were caused by speeding. The top reasons for injury are non-usage of seat-belts and collision with exposed hard structures along the road.”