Seatbelt Laws

A long time ago on this blog I noted one of the things that, to this day, I have still not gotten used to, which is seeing children jumping around in a moving vehicle because they are not wearing seatbelts or being in a child safety seat. It’s jarring. I guess it’s because in Canada they are pretty strict about this so the thought of driving around without a seatbelt is just weird to me. But to let kids roam around in a moving car? I don’t think that’s been allowed in Canada since the 1970s.

In Qatar the law is that you only have to wear seatbelts when sitting in the front seats. No requirements if you’re in the back, no requirements to use child safety seats. If I’m in the back of a friend’s car I’ll always wear a seatbelt, it’s just habit so I don’t even think about it, but occasionally someone points it out. Everyone is used to not wearing one so it’s odd to them that I do. But I am an outlier, a recent study published in the UAE noted that only 1 in 8 people wear a seatbelt when in the rear seats – and in the UAE, unlike Qatar, the law requires seatbelt use.

In Qatar the lack of a law for rear seatbelts is having the results that you would expect, lots of children suffering injuries when involved in a traffic accidents.

https://www.hamad.qa/EN/news/2018/February/Pages/Children-and-Teenagers-Most-Vulnerable-to-Injury-and-Death-from-Road-Traffic-Crashes.aspx

Thankfully it looks like things are slowly changing in Qatar. There is a recent educational initiative to promote using child safety seats and wearing seatbelts when in the rear seats. More interesting is that they’ve announced plans to amend the seatbelt law to require mandatory wearing of seatbelts when in the rear seats.

It’s a positive step but I’m hesitant to call it a victory just yet:

–- It’s a plan to change the law. That doesn’t mean it’s final or that it is guaranteed to happen.

–- There was no timetable for when the law would change. It could be this year, could be much later.

–- If the law is changed then it is up to how well it is enforced. If you look at the above link discussing the UAE they have laws requiring rear seatbelt use but everyone is ignoring it. The news article calls for better enforcement of the law to ensure people are complying. A similar situation is going to happen here is Qatar, without significant monitoring and enforcement the law will be ignored and few people will change.


I’m glad that there is a push to change the law in Qatar, and I hope it comes about soon.