Passenger Safety and Protection

Wear a safety belt in any vehicle where one is fitted, and see that your passengers wear theirs. Belts are compulsory in cars registered on or after 1 January 1980, and the only exemption is a valid medical exemption certificate. Use belts approved by a recognised standards body, and make every adjustment before you drive off.

Where child restraints are fitted, use them, and fit them exactly as the manufacturer instructs. Children should get in and out on the near side, the left, away from passing traffic, and the child safety locks should be on whenever children are in the vehicle. Keep children under control, since a child moving about behind the driver is a distraction nobody can afford. A child under ten may not ride on the back of a truck unless an adult is with them.

Carry only as many passengers as the vehicle is built to seat. Overloading cramps the driver, ruins the handling and is the commonest fault on public service vehicles. Nobody rides on a bumper, bonnet, mudguard, side or roof: a seat is the only place for a passenger. Passengers are generally not carried in goods vehicles, and where an open vehicle is permitted to carry them, they stay seated and under strict control while it is moving.

Passengers carry their own share of this. Do not distract the driver, do not take hold of the steering while the vehicle is in motion, do not hang out of a window and do not throw litter through one. Board and leave a public service vehicle only at designated points, never while it is moving, and always on the near side. A long distance bus is not boarded as a standing passenger.

Never open a door until the vehicle is stationary and you have checked, from its position and the traffic around it, that it is safe to step out.