Scottish call for cabbie seatbelt review

10 November 2010

A Scottish sheriff is calling for a review of a law that exempts taxi drivers from wearing seatbelts.

Sheriff George Way made the recommendation after an inquiry into a fatal accident involving a taxi driver who was not wearing a seatbelt. The taxi was hit by a drunk driver’s car, and the inquiry found the cabbie may have survived if his belt was fastened.

The seatbelt exemption for taxi drivers was last reviewed in 1993. It is in place because of concerns that wearing a belt increases their vulnerability to assault or robbery.

Sheriff Way said: "The risk to the health and safety of both drivers and passengers which these regulations engender is, in my judgment, wholly disproportionate to the perceived risks to drivers of physical abuse and the like from passengers.” (Source BBC)

The Department for Transport says you are twice as likely to die in a crash if you are not wearing a seatbelt. Its estimates, from 2007 figures, show that almost one life a day could be saved if all car occupants wore seatbelts.