‘Belt Up’

Wearing a seatbelt is one of the best ways you can avoid injury .
beltup
Whether you are nipping round the corner or travelling for hundreds of miles, it is a fact that in a car crash a driver or passenger not wearing a seatbelt is more likely to die or suffer serious injury than someone wearing one.

By law, passengers aged 14 and upwards are responsible for ensuring they are wearing a seatbelt, not the driver.

Discuss
Some of the reasons given when passengers are caught not wearing a seatbelt:

reason 1reason 2reason 3

1. What other reasons do people give for not belting up in a car?
2. Why do all passengers on an aircraft obey the fasten seatbelt signs?
3. Elderly people sometimes don’t belt up in cars. Why is that?

There's a new scheme being tested in which convicted drink drivers are breathalysed each time they get into a car and start the engine. A similar device could be fitted to the cars of drivers convicted of a driving offence to trigger an in-car safety message before the engine can start.

Activity
Working in pairs or threes, invent a short in-car safety message, 30 seconds max. This would be transmitted prior to the car ignition engaging with the engine. It could have a serious tone giving sound advice on in-car safety matters or it could be a ‘cheesy’ informal message using slang but no swearing. Be creative, be cheeky if you like, imagine that the car has a bit of an attitude.
examples

Type your message here and print it out. Act it up, use humour, different voices/accents, do it robot style if you want.

Discuss

1.
Would it work, would people belt up if they heard an in-car message?
If not, why?
2.
If it didn’t have success how could you change it to make it work?
3.
Supposing the engine was permanently immobilised if seatbelts were left unfastened.
4.
What do you see as the future of seatbelts?

 

©2006 Crash Magnets