The use of seat
belts has finally been made compulsory. Once again, the Supreme Court has
intervened to do the Government’s job by passing a directive that mandates
the use of safety belts in cars.
To a very small percentage of motorists like us at Autocar India, this directive
won’t change life at all. We are all well habituated to the ritual
of belting up before driving off.
I learned the value of a seatbelt very early in my motoring or more specifically
rallying life. I’ve heavily rolled (and totalled) the car twice and
after both topples have emerged unscathed with only my ego bruised. I owe
it to the four-point Willans harness that clamped me to my seat when I did
those 360s. Without proper tethers I could have been ejected from my Padmini
like a rag doll.
The simple three-point seatbelt all cars come with is the most important
piece of life-saving equipment in a car and it’s amazing how many motorists
consider its use as inconvenient. But it’s not just in India that there
is a reluctance to wear safety belts. Even in Italy - the land of Ferrari,
Lamborghini and Maserati - there was great resistance to seatbelts when
the law insisted that they be used was introduced. The Italians were very
reluctant to obey the law and very few people would belt up. Rumour has
it that an entrepreneur from Naples came up with the ingenious idea of the
‘Safety T-shirt.’ This was a simple T-shirt with a seatbelt printed
on it so that they could drive without wearing a seat belt and without getting
a ticket! Now here’s a business opportunity waiting to be tapped.
But on a serious note, enforcing this law is not going to be easy. There
are a huge number of vehicles roaming our roads, which have no belts at
all and certain soft-top UVs do not even have proper anchor points. And
if belts are not retrofitted properly they can do more harm in an accident.
This new law has people grumbling already. The Taxi Union in Mumbai is unconvinced
that a seatbelt can mean the difference between life and death in an accident.
And as we know the ubiquitous black-and-yellows contribute to a lot of them.
Their argument is that in Mumbai’s bumper-to-bumper traffic, speeds
are so slow that you don’t need to be strapped in. What they don’t
know is that a head-on collision even at 30kph is like falling from a two-storey
building with a steering wheel to land on!
The problem really is the lack of consumer awareness on the importance of
safety belts. Here I blame the manufacturers who preach safety and wax eloquent
about how safe their cars are but not one car company has launched an awareness
campaign on the importance of using safety belts. Finally, it will be education
and not legislation that will persuade motorists to save their necks.
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February 2002 