The latest graphic TV advertising campaign from the National Safety Council and the Department of the Environment, Northern Ireland, aims to increase seat-belt use by shocking road users. This follows joint campaigns which targeted drink-driving and speeding.
The 60-second ad, which was screened for the first time last night, tells the audience that tonight a young man will hit his girlfriend so hard she will be permanently brain-damaged. As an unbelted passenger in a three-car collision, he slams into her. She is critically injured and he is killed. The driver and the other passenger are also killed.
The advertisement ends with three bodies lying under sheets in an ambulance and a voice saying "No seat-belt, no excuse."
The proportion of passengers and drivers who wear seat-belts in the Republic is still very low. It has increased marginally over the eight-year period from 1991, when 52 per cent of drivers wore belts, to 55 per cent in 1999, according to a National Roads Authority survey. The number of male drivers wearing seat-belts has declined in this period but increased in female drivers.
The proportion of male front passengers wearing seat-belts was 45 per cent in 1999, compared to 42 per cent in 1991. In female front passengers, this was 71 per cent in 1999 (63 per cent in 1991).
The Minister of State for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Bobby Molloy, said: "We have set a target of 85 per cent for front- and rear-seat passengers which, if achieved, could save an additional 30 lives each year."
Without a seat-belt, it is estimated that three out of four people will be killed or seriously injured in a 30 m.p.h. head-on collision.