BELT SURVEY

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32612, 21 May 1971, Page 7

BELT SURVEY

Drivers who did not wear seat belts had a 15 times greater chance of being killed in an accident that, those who did, Dr P. Nelson, of Melbourne, said recently, the Press Association reports.

Speaking at a meeting of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons, Dr Nelson said front-seat car passengers ran a seven times greater risk of death if they did not wear seat-belts.

Dr Nelson reported on a survey of accidents in Victoria in the three months to April 30 this year. The 1543 accidents involved 3135 persons, and 132 people died in 114 fatal accidents, he said.

Of the 80 drivers killed, 93.7 per cent were not wearing seat-belts, and of the 31 front seat passengers killed, 87.1 per cent were not wearing belts. Of all those killed, 53 per cent died when they were thrown from their cars. NEW AUST. VEHICLE

A new six-wheeled allterrain vehicle powered by a 10 horsepower Wankel rotary engine has been announced in Australia by a Melbourne company. The Goanna, as the vehicle is called, has a top speed of 35 miles an hour on land, or 5 miles an hour in water, and will climb a 45deg. slope. The small, lightweight body is made of fibreglass.

Another surgeon told the meeting that of 221 drivers killed in Victoria in the last five months, 52 per cent had a blood alcohol level above the Victorian legal limit of .05 per cent. Dr M. Henderson, the research officer of the New South Wales traffic accident research unit, told the meeting that punishment was unlikely to improve road safety. He argued that punishment had no effect on people, such as the drinking driver, who were a problem because they would not conform, or whose group standards encouraged them not to conform.