The number of car occupants wearing seatbelts has increased substantially, according to figures due to be published in an upcoming survey by the National Roads Authority (NRA). Motors expects the report to show that seat-belt wearing is now in the region of 60-70 per cent of car occupants, up from 57 per cent recorded in 2000.
The completed report has been circulated privately, but a date for publication has yet to be confirmed. Prior to its findings, figures used in publicity campaigns to date have shown 43 per cent of front-seat occupants in Ireland don't wear their belts. And only one in five are belted up in the back.
These figures were used in the 'Clicked yet?' campaign launched last April by the National Safety Council. At the time the NSC said Irish seatbelt wearing rates "lag far behind many of our European neighbours and should be as high as 85 per cent".
Any improvement on those figures will be welcomed not just by road and safety organisations, but by the hard-pressed emergency services and hospital staff who have to deal with the direct impact of Ireland's road accident victims.
"The improvement is significant," says Brian Farrell of the National Safety Council, who has seen the report. "Hopefully, when the results are released, they will give another impetus for further improvement. We have spent a great deal of money in the past two years trying to get home the message that wearing seat-belts saves lives."
The Garda has also run a number of specific campaigns on the matter. In one of them over 6,500 motorists or their passengers were prosecuted for failing to comply with the seat-belt laws.
In the US, average seatbelt usage reached 75 per cent last year, with 80 per cent being achieved in states which have a 'primary' seatbelt law allowing police penalties for observed non-usage. The improvement translates into an additional 6 million users.
Seat-belt usage in Britain is around 90 per cent, according to recent research reported by Semperit Ireland in a road safety presentation. And young drivers across the EU have improved seatr-belt usage in the past decade, according to a study by the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College, London.
The survey involved university students in several EU states including Ireland and reported seat-belt use up from 63 per cent to 73 per cent in male students, and from 66 per cent to 77 per cent in female students.
Japanese scientists say 80 per cent of front-seat deaths in accidents could be prevented if those in the back wore seat-belts. Researchers say most casualties are caused by passengers being flung from the back to the front of the car.
Masao Ichikawa and colleagues from the University of Tokyo studied 100,000 accidents dating back five years and published their findings in the medical journal The Lancet. Even in a non-fatal crash, the risk of serious injury is reduced by 50 per cent if occupants are wearing seatbelts. Hospital costs for treating a non-belted accident victims are twice as high than if they'd been restrained.
It has been estimated that American taxpayers are paying more than $14 billion each year in injury-related costs for motorists who weren't wearing seatbelts.
The overall cost of a fatal accident in Ireland is currently estimated at close to a million euros. We have more than 400 fatal accidents a year. Every one that need not have been fatal would have left resources for people on a too-long waiting list for a heart-lung transplant - or, at the other end of the scale, for a relatively more simple but equally life-enhancing for the recipient - hip replacement.
The original concept of seat-belts dates back to 1908, when one could order them in some of the bespoke cars of the time. Seat-belts as we know them, the 3-point kind, were invented nearly 50 years ago by Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin. The company became the first to fit them as standard in front seats in 1959, and it was also the first car manufacturer to fit rear seat-belts as standard, in 1967.
This year sees the 20th anniversary of the date when it became compulsory to wear seat-belts in Britain. While they were made compulsory here in 1971, the British results were far more spectacular. Between 1983 and 2001, road deaths in Britain dropped by 42 per cent, while at the same time the number of vehicles on the road increased by 46 per cent. The use of seat-belts is estimated to save nearly 10,000 lives in the US every year.
For those who still don't buckle up in Ireland, recent research indicates that passengers are 70 per cent more likely not to use seat-belts if the driver doesn't use them.