Monday, 26 June 2017

GEM reiterates seatbelt importance

Stand 409, Goodwood Festival of Speed

Road safety and breakdown organisation GEM Motoring Assist is keen to remind every vehicle occupant how important it is to wear a seatbelt on every journey. That's why GEM will be using the Goodwood festival of Speed to showcase – for the first time in the UK – a special 'tumbling car' that quite literally turns its safely-belted passengers upside-down and spins them around through several revolutions.

GEM is sharing the stand with the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership.

GEM road safety officer Neil Worth said, 'Using a seatbelt is a quick and simple task; it's also a highly effective way of reducing the consequences of a collision. That's why wearing a seatbelt is not a matter of personal choice, but is compulsory for drivers and passengers.

'We are concerned that there are still drivers and passengers who for whatever reason do not use a seatbelt.

'So we urge drivers to take responsibility for their own safety and for the safety of their passengers, by ensuring everyone wears a seatbelt on every road journey. After all, the use of seatbelts is the single most effective method of reducing fatalities and serious injuries in motor vehicle collisions.'

GEM's 'myth-busters' attempt to set the record straight where seatbelts are concerned – in particular to dispel the incorrect notion that seatbelts are unnecessary if a vehicle is fitted with other safety aids.

Seatbelt myth-busters:

I don't need to wear a seatbelt, as my car has airbags and ESC fitted.

Your car's safety systems are designed to work in harmony with the seatbelt. If you're not wearing one, then an airbag is likely to do serious damage to you and even assist in ejecting you through the windscreen in a collision.

It's down to individual choice.

It is not, and has not been for years now. People not wearing seatbelts are 30 times more likely to be ejected from a vehicle in a crash... and if you're thrown from a vehicle, you're four times more likely to die than if you're restrained inside it.

Most people belt up, so why waste time on enforcement?

Because the small percentage of people who won't belt up are at such an increased risk of being injured or killed in a crash.

Seatbelts are unnecessary on local journeys at low speeds.

Imagine a head-on collision at 30mph. After your car has the impact, you're still travelling at 30mph when your head hits the steering wheel or the windscreen. That's the same velocity as someone falling from the top of a three-storey building.