This surprising gesture is crucial before the great starts

We will never say it enough, the seat belt is compulsory in France, for absolutely all the passengers in a car. For children under the age of 10 is added to this the obligation to be installed in a car seat adapted to their age and their morphology. An essential measure to protect each of the passengers from possible risks on the road. Prevention messages to recall that the driver and all passengers must be attached are therefore repeated in a loop, but what is often unknown is that the belt can also represent a safety tool in another case.

The Directorate General of Spanish traffic (DGT), equivalent to road safety, explains in an article that it is also advisable to complete the belts at the back of a vehicle, even when no passenger is installed there. But why such a measure? The DGT explains that the rear benches are not always fixed permanently, so that they can move on certain models of car, in particular on the old vehicles. Attacing the belt therefore makes it possible to solidify the back of the car and prevent the bench movements which could endanger the passengers who are installed at the front.

In addition, there are what is called “The elephant effect”which illustrates the violence to which an object or a non-attached body is subject in the event of a shock: by driving at 60 km/h, something of a weight of 75 kg can hit the seat before with a force equivalent to that of a pachyderm of 4.2 tonnes.

It is to prevent this that the DGT recommends attaching the belts to the rear, even without a passenger: during a collision, the luggage that is in the trunk can hit the bench with an impressive force and can thus move the bench, fold the backrest or cross it before hitting the passengers or creating other damage. In the same way, also avoid placing objects on the back of the car, which could easily be projected forward, like the ball of the last one that drags …