Compulsory seat belts supported

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32588, 23 April 1971, Page 10

Compulsory seat belts supported

The council of the Automobile Association (Canterbury) last evening unanimously adopted a committee recommendation to support the compulsory wearing of seat belts in New Zealand.

The acting-chairman of the motoring and traffic committee which made the recommendation (Mr T. W. Milliken) said that there was no alternative to supporting the compulsory wearing of the belts.

Statistics presented to the committee showed that injuries and deaths decreased with the wearing of belts, he said. Mr Milliken, who is a Christchurch plastic surgeon, said that he had learnt to appreciate how grotesque injuries caused by road accidents could be. The council discussed methods for the encouragement of the wearing of seat belts and some form of policing. Mr Milliken said that insurance companies could provide incentive in their premiums that would prove advantageous to persons wearing seat belts at the time of an accident. Other members of the council endorsed this view. Mr G. L. Falck said that more traffic officers were needed. It would be cheaper to pay more officers than to meet the present hospital and damage expenses, he said, The chairman of the council (Mr T. D. Craig) said that although a law enforcing the compulsory wearing of seat belts would be hard to police it should be invoked for the sake of the driver and his passengers. The general manager (Mr E. S. Palliser) presented a re>ort from the Royal Automo)ile Club of Victoria, Australia, where the wearing of seat belts has now been made compulsory. The chief executive officer of the Victorian club (Mr N.

McPhee) said in his report that there had been general acceptance of the law apart from some objections concerning the infringement of civil liberties.

“From our point of view the time is long passed when this can be used as an important argument to prevent action of this nature,” Mr McPhee said.

Population increase.— The population of Heathcote County increased by 6.2 per cent from the last census in 1966, not by 14 per cent as reported in “The Press” yesterday. The population is now 7563, an increase of 444 since the last census, according to provisional results released by the Government Statistician (Mr J. P. Lewin).