Hundreds flouting seat belt laws

Hundreds of people have been seen flouting seat belt laws while driving in one Hertfordshire town.

A record of vehicles in Tring on 21 April revealed 766 people in 3,445 vehicles not wearing seat belts.

Tring safety Group observers saw 530 (15.4%) drivers without belts and 175 were front seat passengers - 97 were male, 44 female and 34 children.

A further 61 rear seat passengers - 46 children - were not belted up and the safety group said they were stunned.

Stunned by numbers

More than one in three of the passengers without seat belts in Tring on one day were children and, in several vehicles none of the occupants wore them.

A large proportion of the 395 male drivers observed without restraint were in light commercial vehicles and none of them were covered by exemptions to the rules.

In addition, 19 drivers were observed to be holding and using mobile phones. One driver not wearing a seatbelt had a dog on her lap and another was seen to drink from a cup whilst driving by the census point.

Peter Coney, Tring Safety Group Chairman, said he was stunned by the high number of people and children clearly being taken to or from school that wore no seat belts.

Tring Safety Group is an independent body comprising local people who work as volunteers in partnership within the community, police and local authorities.