Non-compliance of child seat, rear seatbelt norm puts children at great risk

NEW DELHI: Parents and adult occupants in vehicles put children to maximum risk, a survey across 11 cities has revealed. While less than 4% respondents said they put ‘child seat’ in their vehicles, over 77% admitted to not putting seatbelt on children while sitting on the rear seat. Barely 7 of every 100 adult occupants wear rear seatbelts.

In a more starling revelation, 90% of the under-aged respondents in the survey by Save Life Foundation and Nissan Ninety said their parents were aware that they drive vehicles and one-third of the parents said they didn’t take any action when they caught their children driving. Releasing the report, Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari said while laws are in place, people needed to follow them for their own safety and there was a need for a behavioural change.

According to the Motor Vehicle Act, parents can be penalised and jailed for allowing any unauthorised person to drive their vehicle and that too without a valid driving licence. Piyush Tiwari of Save Life Foundation said the government should bring in “adult accountability” provision in law and the penalties should be stricter for them, if they violate traffic norms while children are accompanying them.

The study findings, which focussed on rear seatbelt usage and child safety, gains importance considering that in 2017, a total of 26,896 persons killed in road accidents did not use seatbelts. While little over 10,000 of them were drivers, the rest were passengers. The fatal accident involving former Union minister Gopinath Munde in 2014 was also attributed to non-fastening of seatbelt.

The survey which also included day-long observation near important locations in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Jaipur and Lucknow found that only 1.8% were occupants were wearing rear seatbelts. While more than one-fourth of the respondents claimed that they were unaware of the law, 91% people said police never stopped or asked them for not wearing rear seatbelt.

According to the survey, nearly two-thirds (64%) of parents said they felt city roads are unsafe for children and 54% felt people drive unsafely. Majority of the parents felt fast and rash driving made roads unsafe for children.