Drivers and passengers in Ireland are being urged to buckle-up on every journey after new statistics showed over a quarter of drivers and passengers killed in road traffic collisions last year were not wearing a seat belt.

The Road Safety Authority (RSA) has made the plea, along with An Garda Síochána, after carrying out the analysis on provisional garda statistics from 2020.

“For most people, putting on their seat belt has become second nature, but as we can see from our analysis of the casualty statistics from 2020, there is still a percentage who don’t,” said Sam Waide, Chief Executive of the RSA.

“These deaths could have been prevented if drivers and passengers had been wearing a seat belt. I’m asking drivers to make sure they, and any passengers in their car, are wearing a seat belt before starting a journey.”

Between November 2019 and November 2020, 8,770 fixed charge notices were issued by Gardai for seat belt offences.