Provincial Traffic Inspector Antoinette Fennie ensures that Kgomotso Matsunyani is properly buckled up.
“It Takes a Second to Save a Life” is a direct marketing campaign that was launched this month by the Western Cape Department of Transport and Public Works to encourage the use of seat belts in the province.
The message is based on sound internationally tested methods to discourage unsafe driving practices.
“Very seldom do we unbuckle a dead person from a car.” These powerful words come from Gary Watts, coroner of the American county of Richland in South Carolina, who can speak from experience.
Seat belts are not accessories, they save lives and reduce the risk of injury. Drivers and passengers should always wear seat belts, even on the shortest journey. Regulations of the National Road Traffic Act provide that children up to the age of three must be in appropriate child restraints when travelling in private vehicles, even on the shortest journey.
Thousands of people who die in road traffic crashes each year might still be alive if they had been wearing their seat belts. Before a vehicle starts moving, drivers and passengers must make sure everyone is wearing a seat belt, and that young children are kept safe in appropriate child restraints. This prevents needless injuries and deaths. It is a positive action that all of us can all take to keep ourselves and loved ones safe on the roads. It only takes a second to buckle up and save a life.
Research shows that seat belts are 99% effective in preventing occupants from being ejected from the vehicle in the event of a crash. They also reduce the risk of death in a crash by nearly 45%.
Vehicle occupant deaths constitute one of the leading causes of fatalities in the City of Cape Town and account for nearly half of the road deaths in the Western Cape. A study conducted by the Stellenbosch University Emergency Medicine Unit in 2013 revealed that in Cape Town alone:
• Only 25 % of the city’s motorists wore seat belts;
• Only 8,3 % of rear passengers use seatbelts; and
• Most severe injuries were sustained by vehicle occupants who were not wearing seat belts at the time of a collision.
The “It Takes a Second to Save a Life” seat belt campaign is the road safety focus for September 2015. Safely Home is encouraging members of the public to always buckle up, front and back. This message is being communicated through radio advertisements, on social media and via the Freeway Management System’s Variable Message Signs (VMS). Provincial road safety traffic officials are also raising awareness on seat belt education at departmental events, in schools and public spaces during the month.
The department is appealing to parents and caregivers to buckle young children up in appropriate car seats to help prevent injury and death in a crash. Age-appropriate car seats are effective because the car seat harness and vehicle seat belt are positioned over the parts of a child’s body that are most likely to absorb the force of a crash.
Wearing a seat belt could be a difference between life and death. It is not just your own life you are protecting when you choose to do the right thing by buckling up.
It only takes a second to save a life. So buckle up, front and back, on every trip.
Follow Safely Home (@WCGovSafelyHome) on Twitter under the hashtag #AlwaysBuckleUp
