“We are proud to have saved so many lives with the work we did”

The latest episode of GEM’s Voices from the Road podcast recounts how a dedicated team of parliamentarians and policymakers worked together to introduce the compulsory wearing of seat belts for people in the front seat of cars.

The 40 minute podcast, which is now available to listen to, is hosted by veteran road safety campaigner Barry Sheerman MP.

After 13 failed attempts by backbenchers in both houses, a House of Lords amendment by Lord Nugent of Guildford succeeded in getting the a bill to introduce compulsory seat belt wearing through the House of Commons on 28 July 1981.

Their campaign led to the formation of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) under Barry Sheerman’s chairmanship.

The podcast recording earlier this summer offered Barry the opportunity to reunite three key people: 

• Jean Gaffin OBE – who formed the Child Accident Prevention Committee in 1979 with Dr Hugh Jackson and published a report demonstrating the importance of seat belt wearing for children which fed into Barry’s efforts to find as private member’s bill. 
• Glyn Maddocks KC, who started working as Barry Sheerman’s researcher in 1979 and became part of the team to get the seat belt legislation changed.
• Nick Ross CBE, journalist and broadcaster, who was making a TV documentary on road safety at the same time

Barry Sheerman MP said: “Most of us have some reason for being interested in an issue. Road safety is a particular one for me. I had been in a collision many years ago bringing our baby daughter back from her baptism in Sunbury to where I was working in Wales. 

“Somewhere on the A4 near Bridgend someone ploughed into our car head-on. If we hadn’t all been wearing seat belts, I know we would all have been dead. 

“It never left me that this collision could have wiped out my family. I have realised over the years that road safety doesn’t make me a glamorous parliamentarian; nevertheless we know that in the year after the legislation was adopted there was an immediate 29% reduction in fatal injuries of front-seat passengers and a 30% drop in serious injuries. We are proud to have saved so many lives with the work we did.

“Reuniting Nick Ross, Glyn Maddocks KC and Jean Gaffin recently or this recording gave me a clear message that the passion we all had 40 years ago has not dimmed.”

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