Along Africa Avenue that leads to Bole International Airport, Deputy Inspector Abiyot Abebe and his colleagues were busy controlling the traffic flow on the road.

They randomly stopped vehicles to check for traffic regulation compliance, mainly in relation to the newly introduced safety belt regulation that forces passengers to wear seat belts as of January 12, 2020.

On January 14, 2020, the second week since the new traffic regulation was put in place, a driver of a 1998 Trios Daihatsu stepped out of the car to talk to a traffic officer about the offence he has committed related to the person in the passenger seat not wearing a seat belt.

After a short argument with the officer, the driver got back into the car, complaining about the 250 Br fine for the offence.

“Every new traffic regulation introduced makes me a guinea pig,” he complained.

Hawi Jemal, 26, was another driver fined for violating a safety belt regulation. Last week she was at Bole District Police Station to collect her driver’s license. She was one of the many drivers lined up at the station.

More than half of them were penalised for violating the new safety belt regulation. While many paid 250 Br, Hawi paid 300 Br for the same offence as it was indicated on her receipt.

“I don’t know why I had to pay more for the same traffic violation,” she said.

Hawi also argues that she should not have to pay for the passenger’s failure to wear a seat belt.

"Since my car has a functional safety belt, it should be the passenger who pays the penalty,” she said, smiling.

The Addis Abeba Traffic Commission has been working on early preparations and promotional activities for several months in advance to raise awareness about the use of safety belts before the regulation was implemented, according to Markos Tadesse, a major inspector and head of the media division at the Commission.

In the first two days after the enforcement of the new regulation, more than 6,000 drivers were penalised for the safety belt traffic violation.

In enforcing the new regulation, the Commission stated that the use of safety belts decreased the number of deaths related to traffic accidents by half for those passengers in the front seats.

Traffic accidents are becoming a nightmare in the country, taking the lives of many. In Addis Abeba, traffic-related deaths went up by one percent as serious injuries increased by a fifth in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.

The death rate has also increased by a third in Oromia Regional State from the same period last year with 433 people perishing in 1,095 traffic-related accidents. Close to 618 car accidents claimed the lives of 183 people in the Amhara region in the same period this year.

Nationally, the number of accidents occurring last year stood at 40,871 with 4,597 deaths; additionally, 7,408 and 5,949 people sustained serious and minor physical injuries, respectively. The associated property damage was estimated at 872.9 million Br.

A recent study conducted by the Bloomberg Initiative highlighted the poor utilisation of safety belts in Ethiopia despite encouraging improvements made in other areas including helmet use, speed control and drunk driving.

Globally, out of the 1.2 million traffic accidents, 45pc caused serious injuries to passengers that could have been prevented or minimised by the mere use of a safety belt.

The use of safety belts decreases the number of deaths related to traffic accidents by 45 to 50pc for those passengers in the front seats, while it reduces the death rate of passengers in the back seats by 25pc to 35pc, according to WHO.

During the first quarter of this fiscal year, 43 deaths and 101 serious injuries were reported related to traffic accidents in the capital city alone.

Concerned with the ever-growing traffic accidents that claim the lives of drivers and passengers, the Federal Transport Authority has introduced the new safety belt regulation that makes wearing seat belts mandatory for passengers in all types of vehicles.

It was introduced based on an earlier proclamation revised in 2017 that declares it is the responsibility of drivers to ensure the safety of all passengers on board, including verifying that they are wearing seat belts.

The proclamation declares all passengers in all types of vehicles traveling a distance of more than 150Km out of a city, while it gives room for qualified enforcement based on the types of vehicles used within the boundaries of a city.

Accordingly, all vehicles having five to eight seats are required to comply with safety belt requirements for all passengers. Public transport vehicles having between 12 and 25 seats traveling within the distance limit indicated for the inner city are required to enforce safety belt compliance on the front seat passengers only.

Passengers in the back seats are advised but not obligated unless they are traveling over 150Km outside the city, according to Yigzaw Dagnew, communications affairs director at the Authority.

The traffic regulations now in place have different levels of fines and penalty points that can be registered on driver's records depending on the seriousness of the violations.