To Robert Gifford
Executive Director, The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety
Dear Rob
I’m sorry but I must persist. The power and endurance of the myth that PACTS and RoSPA have built around the seat belt law takes a lot of deconstructing. So long as belief in the efficacy of the law persists it will continue to [...]

To Robert Gifford
Executive Director, The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety
Dear Rob
This claim made over a year ago is still on the PACTS website:
“On the 31st January 2008, the 25th anniversary of the law change which made front seatbelt wearing compulsory was celebrated. PACTS itself was set up by Barry Sheerman MP [...]

Now in retirement and culling my files in the process of downsizing I came upon the following letter from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents dated 7 July 1981 shortly before Parliament was to vote on a seat belt law, and encouraging Parliament to vote for the law:
“TO ALL MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT
Dr. Adams [...]

Yesterday when I showed Mayer Hillman the graphs in my last blog on this subject he complained that they displayed the statistics for all road user deaths and not the statistics for those affected by the seatbelt law, i.e. people in the front seats of cars.
My excuse was that at the time I produced the [...]

Simon Jenkins wrote an exceptionally powerful piece in the Guardian on 4 September entitled “The war on drugs is immoral idiocy”. His title conveys the essence. He went beyond proposals to decriminalize consumption, to advocate decriminalizing production as well – to be replaced by licensing, regulation and taxation. The Guardian appears to be suffering a [...]

Last night at 8pm BBC Radio 4 presented a programme entitled “Where did it all go right?” celebrating the success of Britain’s seat belt law. It will be available on the Radio 4 Listen Again facility for another 6 days. It can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mg2v6#synopsis  (or if you are too late for the listen again [...]

The myth of the efficacy of seat belts laws has become deeply embedded. Their “success” is routinely invoked in all sorts of unrelated arguments: e.g. “Opposing wind farms is as ’socially unacceptable’ as not wearing a seatbelt” says the climate change minister.
Every so often it is given a boost by an outrageous claim that goes [...]