One in seven people killed on country Victorian roads last year were not wearing a seatbelt, prompting a plea from the Transport Accident Commission for motorists to buckle up.
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Forty-four years after Victoria became the world’s first jurisdiction to make the wearing of seatbelts mandatory, TAC figures have revealed 25 of the 242 people who died on the state’s roads last year were not wearing them.
Most of the fatalities involving unrestrained vehicle occupants happened in regional Victoria, where 18 of the 141 people killed were not wearing a seatbelt.
In metropolitan Melbourne, seven of the 101 fatalities were not buckled up, meaning regional Victorians who died were twice as likely as their metropolitan counterparts to be unrestrained.
TAC chief executive officer Janet Dore said, despite the figures, the vast majority of Victorians wore a seatbelt every time they got into a car.
“After four decades of strong campaigning for seatbelts, our own research into driver behavior indicates 97 per cent of licence holders buckle up all the time. We need that to be 100 per cent,” Ms Dore said.
Ms Dore said wearing a seatbelt could reduce the risk of dying in a crash by 40 to 50 per cent for drivers and front-seat passengers and 25 per cent for rear-seat passengers.
