Think reinforces new seat belt legislation in Peru

The Touring and Automobile Club of Peru launched the Think before you Drive campaign on Friday, 29 September. Think campaign staff in dummy outfit took to the streets with the traffic police to remind motorists that the new seat belt legislation is coming into force as of 1st October.

This new legislation, which extends compulsory seat belt wearing to the back seats, was the result of the Automobile Club’s Por Amor seat belt campaign, a repeat success of the original Por Amor Use el Cinturón campaign in Costa Rica in 2003/4.

A press conference was held with the many partners of the campaign including the Head of the Traffic Police and the Health Minister and both gave the good example buckling up on the club’s seat belt slide. The club demonstrated that in Peru, 3600 families lose a beloved one in a car traffic accident and 600,000 people are injured each year. This leads to a lot of suffering and at times financial distress among those who are left behind, but the country suffers as well: up to 1 billion dollars per year. The club’s Director General Fernando Neumann said “using a seat belt saves lives, this is something that car owners should remember, even more so when they take other people in their cars”.

The club will assist the traffic police during their road checks on seat belt use. On the first day of police enforcement, 234 tickets were issued, 70% to motorists who for some reason had taken out the seat belts that their cars were normally equipped with. 30% of the fines went to taxi drivers, who were also given a ticket if their passengers were not wearing a seat belt. Most people waited until the last minute to have seat belts installed which resulted in massive queues at sales points and the prices doubled in only 2 weeks’ time. As a result the Transport Ministry decided to phase in installation of seat belts in the back for some types of transport such as intercity buses to November.