The DGT presents its special campaign of surveillance of belt use and SRI

• Surveillance will be carried out on all types of roads and all means available to the General Directorate of Traffic will be used. • Despite the fact that its effectiveness is scientifically proven, even in 2023, in Castilla y León, 15 people who traveled in tourism and a van and who were not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident died on interurban roads. • The presentation took place at the RACE Foundation Training Centre, where attendees were able to try out the flight simulators first-hand.

March 11, 2024.- Today Monday begins a new special surveillance and control campaign within the annual calendar of the General Directorate of Traffic, focused on this occasion on the use of the safety belt and child restraint systems, both in urban and interurban roads and that will last until next Sunday, March 17.

To this end, with the fundamental objective that all the occupants of the vehicles, adults or minors and travel 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 regional and local police that join the campaign, will increase the surveillance of these security devices on all types of roads.

The monitoring of its use from the air will also be intensified, as well as with the automated control that is carried out through the 18 chambers, in Castilla y León, placed both on conventional roads and on high-occupancy roads.

The campaign is in turn in addition to the one organised by RoadPol (European Road Surveillance Network) which, within the European Union area, wants to influence 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.

In particular, in 2023, 15 people who traveled in tourism and a van and who were not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident, 21% of the total, died on interurban roads in Castilla y León.

The deceased users of tourism and vans who did not use the seatbelt were registered in the provinces of: Ávila (1), Burgos (3), León (4), Palencia (1), Salamanca (2), Valladolid (1) and Zamora (3).

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.

IN FIRST PERSON

In order to experience first-hand the effectiveness of the safety belt, the General Directorate of Traffic has carried out the presentation of this campaign in the facilities of the Training Center of the RACE Foundation in the Jarama Circuit, where attendees have been able to climb a rollover simulator with the Director of the RACE Foundation and Institutional Relations of the RACE, Ignacio Fernández, and the Head of Studies and Research of the RACE Foundation, David Fernández.