Hoot guide to seatbelt law
If you're sick of motor insurance companies offering you ridiculous prices because of your age, then a quote from the cheap car insurance specialists at Hoot should come as a breath of fresh air. That's because Hoot Car Insurance Services was established with younger drivers specifically in mind. We're always racking our brains for new ways to cut the cost of young driver car insurance, and over the years we've got it down to something of an art. In fact, we're so confident in Hoot prices that we've decided to try a little diversifying. The team here has experience of all kinds of issues affecting today's motorists, and we wanted to turn this knowledge into a reference section on our website. That came about in the form of the Hoot Guides - page after page of helpful, relevant info and advice for our customers, covering everything from passing your MOT test to decoding car insurance policy jargon. This guide concerns UK seatbelt law, which became surprisingly complicated when the government introduced a set of revisions on 18 September 2006 governing the use of child restraints. Seatbelt law for adults
The law has changed relatively little for adults since 1991, when it became compulsory for back seat passengers to belt up as well as those in the front.
'Adults' in this case applies to any passenger or driver over 14. At this age, you're judged to be responsible for securing yourself - so if the car crashes on your 14th birthday and you're injured because you weren't strapped in, the injury is judged to be your fault. Younger passengers, however, are the driver's responsibility - so if you're at the wheel with children in the back seats you need to make sure they're wearing a seatbelt before setting off. Shockingly, four in ten adult backseat passengers are still not wearing their seatbelts. This figure persists in spite of a long running Department for Transport (DfT) awareness campaign which shows an unbelted rear passenger thrown forward in a car crash, killing the driver sat in front of him. The ratio is more positive in front seats, however, where nine out of ten people are buckling up. Seatbelt law for children
As mentioned before, 'children' in the context of seatbelt law refers to anyone under 14 years of age.
The 2006 revisions refer to three separate age groups of child passengers, who have to be secured three different ways in your car. The two younger groups are now required to use certain specific types of 'child restraint': a collective term for all baby seats, booster seats and the like, designed to adapt adult-sized car seats to their smaller bodies. The first age group includes all babies and children under three. In virtually every case, passengers in this group need to be seated in the correct kind of restraint - either a rear-facing 'baby seat' for children weighing under 13kg or a forward facing 'child seat' for those between 9kg and 18kg. The single exception where child restraints are not necessary, according to the new regulations, in the back seat of a taxi. In this one instance, children under three may travel 'unrestrained'. The second group applies to children over three years old and under 12, or less than 135cm tall (so a nine-year-old measuring 140cm in height falls outside this category). Passengers who fall into this age range are required to sit on 'booster seats' (provided they weigh at least 15kg) or backless 'booster cushions' (for those 22kg and over). Exceptions here are more numerous. Children in the second age group may go without tailored restraints provided they sit in the back seats, wear conventional adult seatbelts and are: in a taxi; travelling short distances in an "unexpected necessity"; or "if two occupied child restraints prevent fitting a third." After all this, the third category is refreshingly straightforward. Children in this group are aged 12 or 13, or are over the 135cm height-limit. They don't require child restraints, and are safe to use conventional seatbelts like an adult - the only real distinction between them and the over 14s is one of responsibility in an accident, which still lies with the driver. At least cheap car insurance from Hoot is straightforward
Confused by all that seatbelt law? We tried to put it as simply as possible, but even like that it'll probably take a few re-reads to sink in - particularly if you're a parent. Luckily for you, Hoot makes getting a cheap car insurance quote really straightforward. We don't ask too many difficult questions, and the whole process of getting a motor insurance quote should only take three minutes. We try to be as straightforward as possible with our car insurance policies, too. Our cover is rock solid, with none of the unnecessary gimmicks offered by other motor insurance companies to justify their silly price tags. On top of that, we rely on our customers to do all our marketing for us by word of mouth. The amount of money we save on advertising is astronomical, and it all gets passed onto you in the form of really cheap car insurance rates. So for a blissfully simple, ridiculously cheap car insurance quote, just click the link below.
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