ALWAYS wear your safety belt
EVERYONE should wear a safety belt
It helps to protect you in an accident by keeping you in your seat
It's law in New Zealand that everyone must wear a safety belt when they're travelling in a car.
Children under five years of age must be properly restrained in an approved child restraint.
Children aged five to seven years must use an appropriate child restraint, like a booster seat, if there's one available. If there isn't, the child must use a safety belt. If there's no safety belt available, the child must sit in the back seat.
Every child in a car aged eight to 14 years must use a safety belt if there's one available. If there's no safety belt, they must sit in the back seat.
Drivers and passengers 15 years and over must wear a safety belt if there's one available
If you don't wear a safety belt, or the driver allows a person under 15 years to travel without wearing a seatbelt th driver can be fined $150 for each belt not worn. The driver must pay for each unrestrained person under 15 years old. People 15 years and over are responsible for their own fine.
Wearing a vehicle safety belt reduces the risk of being killed or seriously injured in a road crash by about 40%.
Did you know
Scientists believe that if everyone wore their safety belts 25 lives could be saved from road crashes each year in New Zealand. That’s just about one entire school class of people who would still be alive after car crashes.
The basic idea of a seatbelt is very simple: It keeps you from flying through the windshield or hurtling toward the dashboard when your car comes to an abrupt stop !
A seatbelt's job is to spread the stopping force across sturdier parts of your body (your hips and shoulders) to reduce the damage.
Swedish inventor, Nils Bohlin invented the three-point seat belt like we have in our cars today and it was introduced by car maker Volvo in 1959.
The first child car seats were invented in 1921, but they were very different from today's car seat. The earliest car seats were really just sacks with strings attached to the back seat.
Most seat belts are equipped with locking mechanisms that tighten the belt when the belt is pulled hard (e.g. by the force of a passenger's body during a crash) but not to tighten when it's pulled slowly so you can put it on and adjust it.