Global NCAP is calling for seatbelts to be made standard in every vehicle.
The organization said around 1.19 million people still lose their lives on the world’s roads every year, with road crashes remaining the leading cause of death for children.
In its newly published Seatbelt Declaration, NCAP said: “The single most effective step we can take to change that picture is also one of the oldest and best understood.
“The seatbelt is the most important passive safety device ever fitted to a vehicle, reducing the risk of death by up to 60% when worn correctly.”
Global NCAP said more than half a century after being introduced, seatbelts are still not available to, or used by, millions of people – most acutely in the low- and middle-income countries that bear the heaviest burden of road death.
“This is not a technological challenge,” added Global NCAP. “The solution already exists. What is required now is the collective will to make seatbelts, child restraint systems and proven occupant-protection technologies standard in every vehicle, in every seat, at every price point, and to ensure they are correctly used.
“That responsibility is shared: by governments who must legislate and enforce, by an automotive industry that must apply the same safety standards to its most affordable models as to its most expensive, and by all of us who advocate for safer roads.”
The Organization said the UN goal to halve road deaths and injuries by 2030 cannot be met while seatbelt availability and use remain optional.
