Is wearing a seat belt mandatory while travelling in the rear seat?

Under Rule 138 (3) of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, a person "seated in the front seat or the persons occupying front facing rear seats" is required to wear seat belts

The death of former Tata Group chief Cyrus Mistry has led to a discussion on the necessity of seat belts while travelling in a car. According to the police, Mistry, who was sitting in the car's rear seat, was not wearing a seat belt. The injury thus became fatal.

The importance of seat belts for rear passengers was highlighted in a 2019 report by SaveLIFE Foundation. According to the study, less than 1 per cent of people in India use rear seat belts. 37.8 per cent of all the people surveyed did not even know that any such legal compulsion existed. While 23.9 per cent of people did not even know that rear seat belts existed.

The data further revealed that 77 per cent of the children who travelled in the rear seat did not wear a seat belt.

However, In India, wearing seat belts is a legal compulsion. Under Rule 138 (3) of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, a person "seated in the front seat or the persons occupying front facing rear seats" is required to wear a seat belt.

Failure to do so may result in a fine of Rs 1,000.

According to the latest data from NCRB's Crime in India 2021 report, 155,000 people died in accidents on Indian roads in 2021. The total number of road accidents in 2021 was 403,000.

The report by SaveLIFE Foundation further added, "According to a World Health Organization report, of road crash casualties who were not restrained by a seatbelt, 70 per cent were travelling at a speed of less than 50 kilometre/hour."

It added, "A collision at that speed has the same effect as falling from the fourth floor of a building. Two-thirds of crashes happen less than 15 km away from home."

In February, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways proposed that all the front-facing seats, including the rear-middle seat, must have a Y-shaped seat belt.

However, even when the rules exist, the report highlighted the inadequate focus on implementing these rules. Ninety-one per cent of the respondents in the SaveLIFE report said that the Police have never stopped them for not wearing a rear seat belt.

Some of the methods to improve the usage of rear seat belts in India were "creating and raising awareness, making it mandatory by law, warning signs inside a moving car if the rear seat-belt is not worn, enhancing police enforcement or imposing steep fines."