POLICE SAY BELT UP OR PAY UP

PEOPLE found not wearing their seatbelts are to be issued with a £30 fixed penalty notice instead of a warning, in a new RUC initiative designed to save lives and reduce serious injury.

Every year almost 35,000 people are found not wearing seatbelts, with most offenders so far given advice and warning instead of penalties or prosecution. However, the launch of a new media campaign has stressed the move away from this current practice to one of issuing fixed penalty notices.

Announcing the newest phase of the initiative, Superintendent Ian Hamill, head of Road Policing Development Branch, said: "The RUC, along with the Department of the Environment and other organisations involved in road safety, believe that up to 20 lives could be saved in Northern Ireland every year if more seatbelts were worn."

He continued: "We are confident that this more robust approach will be welcomed and supported by all law-abiding people. We told the motoring public at the launch of the seatbelt advertisement that for the next four weeks we would continue with the policy of advising and warning. However, we warned them that this would be followed by a seatbelt 'red card' when fixed penalty notices would become the norm. It is now 'red card' time."

Figures for road casualties in Northern Ireland are the worst of any region in the UK, with a recent survey showing that only 67 per cent of passengers in back seats wear seatbelts even though the legal requirement to wear belts in rear seats was introduced in 1993. (CL)