News & Features

Many Young Drivers Not Wearing Seatbelts

Posted in General News on Wednesday, January 8th, 2025

Young people are being urged to ‘belt up in the back’ as new data highlights the staggering numbers killed in car crashes not wearing their seatbelts. 
  
New analysis by The AA Charitable Trust shows almost half (43%) of young passengers (17-29) who die in car crashes are not belted. Wearing a seatbelt reduces the risk of death by around 50%, meaning up to around one quarter of all young car passenger deaths could be avoided if all young passengers put their belts on.  
  
When the data is analysed across all ages, unbelted fatalities fall to 27% of car passengers, highlighting the disproportionate number of young passengers being killed when not wearing their seatbelt. Young, male car passengers are more likely to die unbelted in a car crash than their female peers. The research, based on five years of car crash data where seatbelt wearing status was known, shows 68% of young passengers who die unbelted are male. These crashes are also more likely to  
happen at night, with 74% of young, unbelted, passenger fatalities happening in the night or evening.  
  
New Department for Transport data shows the rate of seatbelt non-wearing fatalities for car occupants is highest for rear seat passengers (40%). Weekends also show the highest rates of non-seatbelt wearing among car fatalities (28% Saturday; 30% Sunday). 
  

As drivers, young people are also needlessly dying due to not wearing their seatbelt. The AA Trust analysis shows one third (29%) of young drivers (17-29) who die in car crashes are not belted. Staggeringly, 95% of these are male. 
  
Overall, 32% of drivers who died unbelted were aged 17-29, despite this age group only accounting for around 14% of driving licences. 
  
The AA Charitable Trust has carried out the analysis to mark the start of a new focus on the importance of wearing a seatbelt, particularly among young people.  
  
Additional research commissioned exclusively by the AA Trust, into attitudes to wearing seatbelts among new and learner drivers shows: 

• 14% say they are less likely to wear a seatbelt on a short journey as a passenger 
• 24% of young drivers said they had driven while their passengers were not belted up 
• 17% said they have driven without a seatbelt on 
• 11.6% of young drivers say they are less likely to wear a seatbelt as a passenger in the backseat.  
• 7.6% said they are less likely to wear a seatbelt on a short journey as a driver 

AA/Yonder polling of 13,155 qualified drivers shows one in twenty (5%) of drivers would take their seatbelt off to change clothes and a small, but significant, minority (2%) would remove their seatbelt to change seats in a moving vehicle.  
  

The AA Charitable Trust recently called for six penalty points for new drivers caught not wearing their seatbelts, under a raft of proposed measures to improve new driver safety. There also needs to be a continued focus on the importance of seatbelt wearing to help reduce the number of people needlessly killed every year. Edmund King, Director of the AA Charitable Trust, said: “Wearing a seatbelt is the single most effective way to protect yourself, and others in the car with you, from death and serious injury. It is an utter tragedy that young people are dying as passengers and drivers because they have failed to put their seatbelt on. This research marks the start of a renewed focus from the AA Trust on the simple importance of wearing a seatbelt. We hope our calls will unite others from across the road safety network, including driving schools, to ensure the message reaches the young people most at risk.   
“Our message to young passengers is clear – belt up in the back – it could save your life, and the lives of others in the car with you.”  
  
 

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