The survey on seat belt use is carried out every May by suitably trained bfu personnel. At a total of 73 observation sites (driver and front-seat passenger: 59, back-seat passengers: 14) throughout Switzerland, details are recorded for some 45,000 automobiles with Swiss registration plates. Children under the age of 7 and special-purpose vehicles (police, taxi, etc.) are not included. The calculation of the proportion of seat belt wearers takes into consideration the population in the particular Swiss language region, plus the kilometrage by road type. Seatbelt-wearing rates among car drivers and front-seat passengers remained stable with figures of 92% and 91% respectively compared with the previous year. In contrast, the figure has fallen to 72% among back-seat passengers and is thus well below that of front-seat occupants. Significant differences were again revealed by location and language region: the wearing-rate was highest (97%) on motorways, the roads with the lowest accident risk. On the more dangerous rural roads, it was lower at 93% and, on urban roads, where short distances are often covered, it was only 88%. While 9 out of 10 drivers in German- and French-speaking Switzerland wore seatbelts, the figure for Ticino was only 8 out of 10. With a wearing rate of 88% on urban and rural roads, men were well behind women (95%). This difference is visible in all language regions, but at a significantly lower level in Ticino. Younger men aged 18 to 24 years, in particular, had the lowest wearing rates as drivers (84%) and as front-seat passengers (76%). Women in this age group were considerably more safety conscious. The result for younger front-seat passengers (7-17 years) was gratifying: irrespective of gender, they wear seatbelts with above-average frequency. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting