Brussels, 23/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Thursday, the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) presented the results of a study on the use of safety belts in transport. Although the wearing of safety belts is compulsory under EU law (Directive 2003/20/EC of 8 April 2003 amending Council Directive 91/671/EEC), the percentage of passengers who actually wear safety belts in front seats varies from under 70% to over 95% depending on the European state. This figure is less high for passengers sitting in the back seats although estimates by ETSC show that safety belts could save 11,500 lives per year throughout Europe.
According to the study carried out in 27 European states (EU25 Switzerland and Norway) in the context of the Road Safety Performance Index (PIN) launched in 2006, France, Germany and Malta lead the way. All three show that 95% of road users wear safety belts when sitting in the front seats of vehicles. This is followed up by Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands with a rate of around 90%. In the group of states that joined the EU in 2004, in addition to Malta, it is Cyprus and Poland that have the best scores with the rate of safety belt use being 95%, 80% and 78% respectively. Hungary, Italy and Belgium, on the other hand, have lower rates of use, of around 70%.
ETSC spokesman Evgeny Pogorelov has pointed out that the aim of the ETSC is to step up safety belt usage to over 95%, which would allow over 2,400 lives to be saved in Europe. Above all, it is, as ETSC points out, a matter of launching a series of awareness campaigns, stepping up police checks and acting at national level in order to encourage the habit of putting on one's belt. At the present time, the initiative has come from TISPOL (European Traffic Police Network), a private organisation that enjoys Community co-funding, and which launched “operation safety belt” on 19 February in the context of which the police should carry out spot checks on thousands of additional cars until 25 February. (aby)