Automotive manufacturers have moved quickly to adopt new seatbelt reminder technology as incoming data shows its safety benefits.
US not-for-profit the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) rated 62 per cent of 2024 car models tested as having a “Good” seatbelt reminder system, up 45 per cent on 2022.
Less than a quarter of tested brands were rated “Marginal” or “Poor”.
Four of Australia’s highest selling car brands, Hyundai Tuscon, Mazda CX-5, Toyota Corolla and Toyota RAV4 received a “Good” rating.
IIHS President David Harkey said the rapid progress was “a big win” for road safety in the US where seatbelt uptake has had a chequered past.
“Automakers can boost a vehicle’s performance in this test with just some small software changes,” Harkey says.
“These easy tweaks can have a big impact on road safety.”
IIHS research found seatbelt reminder technology, like visual prompts for the driver and audio prompts for passengers, could cut mortalities and had the same impact on belt wearing rates as systems limiting vehicle speed.
Not wearing a seatbelt continues to have a disproportionate impact on road fatalities despite seatbelt reminder systems being mandatory in all new Australian cars since 2005.
More than 150 road fatalities in Australia, just over 15 per cent, are linked to not wearing a seatbelt.
The most recent federal road safety reports found over 95 per cent of Australian road users typically wear a seat belt.
IIHS senior research scientist David Kidd says; “We found that an audible reminder that lasts at least 90 seconds increased belt use by around 30 per cent.”
“That means we could save at least 1,600 lives a year [in the US] if every vehicle on the road was equipped with a good rated system.”
Almost half of US road fatalities are linked to not wearing a seatbelt.
Australian adherence to seatbelt reminder technology has been linked to UN road safety and seatbelt standards, while market uptake has been anecdotally high.
The current vehicle safety Australian Design Rule requires a visual seatbelt reminder for drivers, and an audio reminder for front and back seat passengers.
A UN safety recommendation made in May this year called for audio belt reminders to last at least 30 seconds for front and back seats.