Seat belts please – compulsory for 30 years, even on rear seats
Published: Wednesday, Aug 7th 2024, 09:50
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For 30 years, seat belts have also been compulsory in the back seats of cars in Switzerland. Current data from the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BFU) and the Federal Statistical Office confirm the effectiveness of this road safety measure.
Despite increasing traffic, the number of people killed and seriously injured on Swiss roads has fallen sharply in recent decades. According to the Federal Roads Office, there were a total of 18,254 accidents with personal injury on Swiss roads in 2023. There were 236 fatalities, 4096 serious injuries and 17,404 minor injuries. 22 of the fatalities were passengers.
In 1994, before the introduction of compulsory seat belts in the rear seats of passenger cars, 637 people died in 23,527 accidents, 5923 were seriously injured and 16,967 were slightly injured. 106 of the fatalities at that time were passengers.
Wearing a seatbelt has become a matter of course
According to the BFU, 96 percent of car drivers, 95 percent of front-seat passengers and 92 percent of rear-seat passengers use a seatbelt. There are only slight differences between the regions.
By comparison: in 2000, significantly fewer drivers (77 percent) and only 32 percent of rear seat passengers used a seat belt.
Wearing seat belts has prevented more than 5,700 serious injuries and around 650 fatalities following road accidents in Switzerland in the last ten years, as the BFU reported on request.
This shows how effective mandatory road safety measures can be. Improvements in road safety could at best be achieved with technical measures (e.g. warnings in the vehicle).
The latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office confirm just how effective seat belts are. Of the 2023 people killed in accidents in passenger cars, 6.6% were not wearing a seatbelt. 20.3 percent of those not wearing a seatbelt were seriously injured in accidents and 73 percent were slightly injured.
In contrast, the proportion of fatalities who were wearing a seatbelt was only 0.5%. Only 8 percent of those wearing a seatbelt were seriously injured and over 91 percent were only slightly injured.
Fierce resistance at launch
The compulsory use of seat belts came later in Switzerland than in other countries, amidst sometimes fierce resistance. It was introduced in July 1981 after an extremely close referendum. Initially, it only applied to the front of the car. Rear passengers have only been required to wear seat belts since 1994.
In the vote on the Gurtenobligatorium on November 30, 1980, the result was only a wafer-thin yes with 51.6 percent. A wide rift opened up between the German-speaking and Latin cantons: While Zurich and Basel-Stadt approved the bill with over 70 percent, it was overwhelmingly rejected in all French-speaking cantons and in Ticino. The regulation was decried by opponents as paternalistic and a deprivation of freedom.
The "no" vote was almost 73% in Vaud, 82% in Geneva, over 85% in Jura and over 86% in Valais. Opponents of the measure have been active before: in 1976, when the Federal Council wanted to make the use of seat belts compulsory for the first time, a seat belt objector from Valais took his case all the way to the Federal Supreme Court. The supreme court finally overturned the Federal Council's decision in September 1977.
©Keystone/SDA
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