Seat belts

Seat belts are provided for your safety and the safety of your passengers, always wear them.

You are also required by law to ensure that all passengers under the age of 16 are correctly restrained, you are liable to be fined if they are not.

Using seat belts	Legal requirements	Children and seat belts
Child restraints	Belt adjustment	History and development

Seat belts save lives, even in minor impacts

• A correctly adjusted seat belt will prevent you from being thrown around inside the car, or thrown out of the car in the event of an crash.
• In the interests of your own safety, ensure that your passengers are properly restrained.
• In a frontal crash, the driver or front seat passenger can receive injuries from being struck by an unrestrained rear seat passenger or loose items that become projectiles.
• In a crash correctly adjusted seat belts:
  • Minimise contact with the interior of the vehicle.
  • Prevent occupants from being thrown out of the vehicle.
  • Spread the force of impact over a large portion of the body.
  • Minimise injuries.
• Most seat belts in modern cars adjust automatically; you only have to lock it into place.
• Everyone travelling in your car must wear seat belts if they are fitted. If there are seating positions in the car with no seat belts provided, the positions with seat belts must be occupied first.
• Never restrain two people with one belt, it is dangerous and illegal.
• Remember children need to be restrained too. Seat belts are designed to restrain adults, if you are carrying a child have a suitable child restraint fitted and make sure it complies with the Australian Design Standard.
• Don't travel in the open space of a ute, panel van or station wagon, it is dangerous, you may be thrown from the vehicle, against the interior of the vehicle or into the front seat occupants.
• Worn, frayed or damaged seat belts must be replaced immediately, they are illegal.
• Seat belts should be worn without twists or knots.

How they work

• Seat belts work by keeping you in your seat if the car hits something or rolls over.
• The forces involved in a crash are much too high for you to resist by bracing yourself.
• The seat belt keeps you in your seat and prevents you from being thrown about inside the car and striking against hard surfaces or other occupants or even worse being thrown out of the car altogether.
• Research shows that seat belts reduce the risk of injury by at least 90%.
• If a car is travelling along the road at 60km/hour hits an object, everything inside that is unrestrained, including anybody not wearing a seatbelt , keeps travelling at 60km/hour until it hits something.
  • If you hit the hard windscreen you will suffer severe, possibly fatal, injury.
• Modern cars are designed so that the front and rear crumple on impact and the passenger cabin stays rigid.
  • This reduces the force of impact and the vehicle takes longer to slow down.
  • It can be compared to diving into water as against falling on concrete.
  • When you dive into water your speed is reduced relatively slowly over a distance of 1 to 2 meters by the resistance of the water.
  • If you fall onto concrete you stop within millimetres.
  • Similarly if you are wearing a seat belt you slow down with the car over several metres rather than millimetres if you hit the windscreen or dashboard.
  • Injuries are therefore greatly reduced.

Using seat belts

• Seat belt enforcement is still a problem.
• There is a high wearing rate for front seat occupants (98%), though it is lower for rear seat passengers (83%).
• Rural male drivers are less likely to wear a seat belt. At least 36% of those killed in rural fatal crashes were not wearing a seat belt compared to 14% in the city.
• Non seat belt wearers are ten times more likely to be killed or severely injured in a crash.
• There are a number of misperceptions about seat belts.
  • Perception - you could be trapped in the car by your belt.
  • Reality - real life experience shows that this rarely happens. Use of a seat belt means that you are more likely to be conscious and able to get out after a crash if you are wearing a seatbelt.
  • Perception - seat belts prevent you from being thrown clear.
  • Reality - you are more likely to be killed if thrown out of the vehicle.
  • Perception - you do not need to wear a seat belt for short trips
  • Reality - most crashes occur within 5kms of home.

Legal requirements

• Under Western Australian law all drivers and passengers must wear a seat belt where provided.
• Seats with seat belts must be occupied in preference to those without.
• Seat belts that are worn or frayed must be replaced.
• There are some exemptions to the seat belt law; you do not have to wear a seat belt if you are:
  • The driver of a vehicle travelling in reverse.
  • Hold a current medical certificate giving you exemption.
  • Doing work, which requires you to get in and out of the vehicle frequently and the vehicle speed does not exceed 25km/h.
  • Under the age of one year and in a taxi, if there is no suitable child restraint available.
  • A taxi driver carrying passengers after dark.
  • Special vehicles as defined under the Road Traffic Act.

Children and seat belts

• Children must be restrained in a suitable restraint at all times. 
• Children under 12 months of age must use a suitable child restraint.
• The driver is responsible for ensuring children under 16 are using a suitable restraint.
• A seat belt is still effective for pregnant women.
• Holding children in your arms is dangerous and illegal.
• Two or more persons in a single seat belt is dangerous and illegal.

Belt adjustment

• Seat belts should be worn tight but comfortable with the buckle at the side.
• The webbing should not have any twists or knots.
• If the seat belt has an adjustable top mounting it should be set level with your ear.
• Pregnant women should wear it across the hips and below the baby.

History and development

• Seat belts as an idea are not new.
• Volvo first introduced three point seat belts as standard in 1959.
• In Australia the fitting of seat belts to front seats became compulsory in 1969 and to all seats in 1971.
• Wearing of seatbelts was made compulsory in 1971.
• Early seat belts relied only on the give in the webbing material to control the forces on the body. Two major problems occurred.
  • The webbing in normal use was too loose. In a crash this allowed the occupant to move forward increasing the risk of injury by contact with the dashboard or windscreen or the sudden jerk from the removal of the slack in the webbing.
  • In severe crashes the loads imposed on the body could become too high, leading to injury.
• The compulsory use of automatic retractors in seat belts from 1975, plus the availability of pretensioners that take up the slack in the seatbelt when a crash is sensed solved the first problem.
• Webbing clamps are also used to prevent excessive pay out of webbing if there is delayed locking of the retractor.
• Load limiters allow limited pay out of the webbing when crash loads becomes excessive.
• Innovations such as pretensioners, web clamps and the use of load limiters provide better protection for vehicle passengers and drivers.
• The use of air bags and electronics also provides for intelligent seat belt design that can allow for a greater variety of situations.
• Warning systems help to ensure that drivers and passengers do not forget to wear seatbelts.