40 years of seat belt requirement with fines
The punishment that saved many lives
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Today, seat belts are compulsory for drivers. A few decades ago, things were different. Only a fine could make Germans come to their senses. Today, almost everyone wears a seat belt – but things could be better.
It may seem surprising today, but German drivers used to be very reluctant to wear seat belts. That changed abruptly exactly 40 years ago, when on August 1, 1984, a fine of 40 D-Marks was introduced if the front occupants of a car were not wearing seat belts. The Björn Steiger Foundation, which has been working to improve emergency and rescue services in Germany since the late 1960s, is now commemorating the anniversary of this measure.
The obligation to wear seat belts was originally introduced in Germany in 1976, but was initially ignored by many car occupants. At that time, only 40 percent of front passengers in urban areas buckled up, and the overall seat belt wearing rate was 60 percent. It was only when the fine was introduced that the rate jumped to over 90 percent; today it is around 99 percent. Although the rate is now very high, the number of road deaths could be reduced by a further 200 per year if everyone wore a seat belt, according to the Björn Steiger Foundation. Today, you have to pay a fine of 30 euros if you are caught not wearing a seat belt.
Great resistance to the introduction of compulsory seat belt use
While the obligation to wear a seat belt is now taken for granted by the vast majority of drivers, when it was introduced almost 50 years ago it met with considerable and, from today's perspective, largely irrational resistance from the population.
However, the accident statistics spoke a clear language: between October 1984 and July 1985, the number of people killed in road traffic in Germany fell by almost 1,500, and the number of seriously injured people fell by around 15,000. The enforcement of seat belt use through fines is therefore still considered to be the most successful single measure to date for personal protection in road traffic. Siegfried Brockmann, Managing Director of the Björn Steiger Foundation, therefore sees the introduction of the fine as a politically courageous and historically significant measure.
