One third of kids killed on roads weren’t wearing seatbelts

Almost a third of all young children killed as car passengers on Irish roads in recent years were not wearing a seatbelt.

Four out of the 14 children under 14 years who died in road traffic collisions between 2014 and 2016 were unrestrained passengers, according to figures contained in a new EU-wide study on road safety for children.

The report by the European Transport Safety Council, of which Ireland’s Road Safety Authority is a member, showed that Ireland had the fifth highest rate of child road fatalities where victims were not wearing seatbelts or similar restraints out of 13 EU states which provided comparative data.