on September 06, 2022)New Delhi: Death of Tata Sons former chairman Cyrus Mistry and his friend Jahangir Pandol A motor accident on Sunday once again highlighted that their seat belts don’t have much strap on while sitting in the back seat of a vehicle.
Not only does not complying with seat belt laws put the lives of occupants in the vehicle at risk, in the event of an accident, their families may also receive less compensation from motor accident claims tribunals for “violations” of the rules.
“There is no law which says that if a person does not wear a seat belt and is killed or injured in a road accident, he will not get compensation. In such cases, the Tribunal or the courts shall inquire into the cause and the motor Deepak K Nag, an advocate dealing with accident claims cases, said, “Violation of seat belt rule can be considered a contributing factor to death or injury. Tribunals or courts may be inclined to award less compensation.”
Hari Ananthakrishnan, who retired as chief general manager (legal) of insurance regulator IRDAI, said the court or tribunal will not only look into the cause of the accident but also the coverage of the insurance policy. “The minimum cover mandated under the Motor Vehicles Act does not cover ‘countless passengers’ traveling in private vehicles, they are insured under a comprehensive policy. Will look into all aspects. Central Motor Vehicle Rules, such as wearing of seat belts,” Ananthakrishnan explained.
While the rule making it mandatory for the driver and the front passenger to wear a seat belt was laid down in 1993, the government made it mandatory to wear a rear seat belt from October 2002. However, compliance remains low due to poor enforcement of the rule. In 2019, the government increased the fine for not wearing seat belts to Rs 1,000, but that too did not help improve compliance.
According to the data available with the government, FIRs from 2018 to 2020 show that in 60,466 road accident deaths, not wearing a seat belt was one of the leading causes of death. Although the compilation of the data does not specify the number of rear seat occupants killed due to not wearing a seat belt, more than 50% of these deaths were passengers.
two separate surveys by
In 2017 and 2019, the SaveLife Foundation revealed low compliance with seat belt laws. According to the first survey, barely 4% of respondents said they used seat belts. Another survey found that 37% of respondents felt that wearing a rear seat belt was not mandatory and 9% felt it did not add to safety.