Is there any excuse for not fastening your seat belt, or not using child restraint systems? Absolutely not. Are there consequences for not making these simple gestures? Sadly, yes. Extremely serious ones.
During the second week of March (from the 8th to the 14th, to be precise), the Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT) launched a social media campaign with the imperative title "Átate a la vida" ("Buckle up for life"; in Twitter language, #ÁtateALaVida). The aim was to promote child restraint systems (CRS) as well as the seat belt.
One of the focal points of the campaign was to warn, with videos like this one, of the danger of unbelted passengers: the so-called "bullet passengers".
Do you know what a bullet passenger is 🔫❓
One who is thrown forward and hits other occupants of the vehicle because they are not wearing their #cinturón. A danger to themselves and to others 😱.
👉 https://t.co/dIeBffOWF3 #CampañaControlCinturon #SRI 8-14 March #ÁtateALaVida pic.twitter.com/5WikV9IBRy
— Dir. Gral. Tráfico (@DGTes) March 9, 2021
Physics doesn't lie. At 80 km/h, rear-seat passengers who are not properly restrained can be thrown forward in a collision… with a force equivalent to being hit by a 1,200-kilogram ball at 10 km/h. The damage this can cause is very serious. Lethal, of course. Crush injuries, head injuries, other injuries… Frightening, isn't it?
Campaign results: almost 4,000 fines
The number of people fined following the campaign on the roads shows that this type of action is still far from unnecessary: the Guardia Civil issued no fewer than 3,914 penalties, to both drivers and passengers travelling without a seat belt. Officers checked a total of 327,414 vehicles across the country (Motorpasión reports). As for vehicle type, private cars received the most fines (1,857 drivers, 1,258 passengers).
Most of the offences reported by officers occurred on conventional roads (77%), which are particularly dangerous according to accident statistics.
On buses, 42 passengers were penalised, compared with 14 drivers. Of the 47,458 goods vehicles checked, 530 drivers were not wearing a restraint system (nor were 196 passengers). In taxis, the numbers of taxi drivers and passengers fined were almost equal, eight and nine respectively.
#ÁtalesALaVida
Also taking advantage of Father's Day (19 March), the DGT made a special appeal to parents' sense of responsibility. Child Restraint Systems (CRS) and rear seats are compulsory until children are at least 135 centimetres tall. Compared with the 132 cases of children not using any restraint system last year, in 2021 192 unrestrained children were recorded. A worrying figure, without doubt, which has less to do with efficient driving than with responsible driving.