Fasten yourself and your passengers!

July 21, 2023

On July 28, 2023, the State Traffic Inspectorate of Glubokoe will hold a Unified Road Safety Day aimed at promoting the use of passive safety devices under the slogan: "Fasten yourself and your passengers!".

Today, no one disputes the truth that passive safety devices are vital. Traffic rules require the driver and all passengers in the car to be fastened with seat belts, if they are provided for by its design, including in the rear seats.
At the same time, there are still individual passengers and drivers who are skeptical about seat belts and, as a rule, fasten them to avoid an unpleasant encounter with a traffic police inspector. This attitude arises solely from ignorance of what can happen to those sitting in the car during a road traffic accident. There are enough tragic cases when drivers and their passengers ignored seat belts, and it was precisely they that could have helped save human lives.
Tragic life examples prove that by not fastening a seat belt, a person significantly increases their risk of death or serious injury in the event of an accident. During and after impact, it is necessary for the body to be fixed in place to prevent uncontrolled movement of people around the cabin, and it does not matter at all where you are sitting – in the front or in the back. After all, under the force of inertia, there is a high probability of hitting various interior objects or being thrown through the windshield. It is at this moment that people mostly receive fatal injuries. A driver, during a sharp maneuver or after an impact with a tightly fastened seat belt, has the opportunity to control the car and fight the situation to the end; nothing will knock them out of their working position. No matter how the car spins, crashes, or overturns on or off the road, the seat and belt

keep the body in the most protected position away from the roof, pillars, and dashboard. Race car drivers have repeatedly experienced all the charms of accidents and rollovers. Remember how they are seated – they are literally "driven" into their seats, tightly "bound hand and foot" by multi-point harnesses. Thanks to the harnesses, passengers also remain in their places, rather than "flying" around the cabin.
According to statistics, passengers and drivers who use seat belts have twice the probability of surviving a collision and five times the probability of surviving a rollover. Seat belts reduce the number of fatalities by approximately 50%.
Special attention must be paid to the transportation of child passengers. Often, parents give little thought to the consequences of improper transportation and do not pay due attention. However, children in a car involuntarily become hostages of a particular situation on the road. That is why it is best to transport young passengers in child restraint systems. Minors under the age of 12 are allowed to be transported only in the rear seat of a car, with mandatory use of seat belts by them.

In accordance with paragraph 178 of the Traffic Regulations of the Republic of Belarus, the transportation of children in a passenger car equipped with seat belts must be carried out using: child restraint systems that comply with the child's weight and height – for children under five years of age; child restraint systems that comply with the child's weight and height, and other means (boosters, special seat cushions, additional seats) that allow the child to be safely fastened using the seat belts provided for by the vehicle's design – for children aged five to twelve years.

It is permitted to transport children under twelve years of age without using the devices specified in the first part of this paragraph, if the child's height exceeds 150 centimeters, as well as in a taxi.

It is prohibited to transport children in the front seat of a passenger car using child restraint systems that comply with the child's weight and height, the back of which is turned towards the vehicle's windshield, if the front seat has an airbag, except when the frontal airbag mechanism is deactivated.

Therefore, it is extremely important

to every adult transporting children, remember one simple truth: "There are no other people's children!"

Senior State Traffic Inspector

of the Traffic Police Department of the Public Security Police of the Glubokoye District Department of Internal Affairs

Police Captain

E.A. Sivytsky

20.07.2023