A new road safety campaign has been launched in Bradford in an effort to reduce the number of deaths on the city’s roads.
Launched by the Bradford Council, the ‘Seat Belt On’ campaign aims to highlight to parents the importance of ensuring children are safely secured when travelling in a car .
The campaign is being promoted with the help of the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, the Primary Care Trust and the Safeguarding Children’s Board.
Around 200 road-side adverts have been put up throughout the district by the council’s road safety team to remind motorists and passengers to belt up.
The team will also be making visits to the city’s primary and secondary schools after Easter to get their message across to children and teachers.
Parents are being sent leaflets informing them that children under 12 are required by law to have a car seat or booster cushion in place until they are 135cm tall, and the team plans to show parents which seats are the most suitable for their children by weighing and measuring them on their school visits.
Bradford Council’s senior road safety officer Huma Rahman said: "Adults have a duty of care and responsibility to children in cars. The responsibility lies with parents and it is unfortunate that there are still young people who don’t wear seat belts when they are in the rear seats of a car."
"Sadly, when there are a lot of young men in a car, wearing a seat belt still seems to be uncool. It is a fact that most accidents happen in the evening when there is a group of young people in the car."
Car accidents in Bradford last year 2008 resulted in 1,041 drivers and 639 car passengers being killed or injured. Of those, 34 passengers were children aged four or under and another 108 aged five to 15.
According to official figures, every fatal car accident in the UK costs over £1.5 million in emergency response costs, medical expenses, damage to property, insurance and administration costs.
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