People not wearing seat belts and dying on our roads has to stop, says New Zealand’s leading road safety organisation the Automobile Association.

"It's hard to believe that heading into Labour weekend in 2016 we would still need to be urging every person in a vehicle to buckle up but we are seeing far too many lives lost because of this," says AA spokesperson Simon Douglas.

"The AA is asking every driver and passenger to please wear your seat belt every time you are in a car.”

In the first nine months of the year nearly 70 people not wearing seat belts have died in crashes. One simple click could have saved a lot of them.

"There are many crashes where the people wearing seatbelts in a car only suffer minor injuries but someone not buckled up dies,” says Mr Douglas.

"No one knows why we are seeing an increase in the number of people not wearing their seat belts but the power to turn it around is literally in everyone's own hands.

“You’ve got more chance of being in a crash than winning big in Lotto yet people think one of them will never happen to them and hope the other one will.

"If you are someone who doesn't care about wearing a seatbelt for your own sake, do it for your family."

Drivers that are already wearing their seat belts can do some other simple things to be safer on the roads as well by giving themselves more following distance, sticking to a safe speed for the conditions and staying 100% focussed on driving.

Last Labour weekend five people died in road crashes and the AA hopes, as always, that this year we can have a fatality free holiday period.

For more information contact:

Simon Douglas
Policy Manager
New Zealand Automobile Association
T. 04 931 9985
M. 021 607 647
E. sdouglas@aa.co.nz