The General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) in Cantabria will carry out during this week a new special surveillance and control campaign focused on this occasion on the use of the safety belt and child restraint systems.
With the fundamental objective that all persons occupying vehicles, adults or minors and travelling in the seat that they travel, make use of the safety belt or the appropriate SRI, the agents of the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard and those of the local police who have joined the campaign, will increase the surveillance of these security devices on all types of roads.
The surveillance will be carried out on all types of roads and all the means available to the General Directorate of Traffic will be used, including automated control carried out through the 3 cameras placed on high-occupancy roads.
According to the DGT, in the last six years (2018-2023) 10 people who did not use a seatbelt have died in Cantabria. In this same campaign, held in the month of March 2023, 121 people were denounced in our autonomous community for not using the safety belt.
The campaign, which will run until next Sunday, 17 March, is in turn in addition to the one organised by RoadPol (European Road Surveillance Network) which, within the European Union, wants to emphasise the basic importance of these retention systems.
PROVEN EFFECTIVENESS
Safety belts and child restraint systems are among the most effective measures to protect motor vehicle occupants from injury in the event of traffic accidents and, although this fact has been scientifically proven, there are still a significant number of drivers and occupants who do not use a restraint system or do so incorrectly. Especially for child restraint systems, which are more complex to use than the seat belt, there is a high prevalence of improper use or use of systems that are not suitable for the child's size.
It is important to remember, once again, that the Traffic and Road Safety Law punishes with 4 points not to wear the safety belt, the same ones that are retracted for not using the proper child restraint system or not doing it in the right way.
PROPER CHILD RESTRAINT SYSTEMS
In the case of children, the use of child restraint systems is even more important since data show that nine out of ten serious or fatal child injuries would have been avoided if mandatory restraint systems had been used and that, in the event of an accident, injuries are reduced by up to 75% with proper use of them.
In Spain it is mandatory that minors with a height of 135 cm or less correctly use the child restraint system appropriate to their height and weight, being recommended up to 150 cm.
Minors must be compulsorily seated in the rear seats, except when the vehicle does not have them, whether they are occupied by other minors or it is not possible to install all child restraint systems in them, and it is recommended that they travel in the opposite direction, if possible, up to 4 years and, compulsorily, up to 15 months.
The General Directorate of Traffic carried out, in collaboration with the Spanish Alliance for Child Road Safety, a decalogue of advice that should always be kept in mind.
It is also important to remember that the safety of the child depends mainly on the driver: respecting the rules, driving in a calm and relaxed way, without aggressiveness or brusqueness, always maintaining the safety distance and adjusting the speed to the circumstances of the traffic is the best way to protect minors in their movements.