Your responsibility as a driver is for you to be watchful over your passengers. You must make sure that you do not exceed the recommended amount of passengers for your car’s capacity. If you don’t abide by these things you could find yourself in trouble with the law.

How Many Passengers Are Allowed?

The maximum amount of passengers that your car can have depends on the number of seatbelts in your car. From May 2009 the new directive prevents more passengers being carried than there are seat belts in the rear of vehicles. This will mean that any vehicle of whatever age, where seat belts are fitted in the rear, more passengers may not be carried in the rear than there are seat belts available.

This is because there have been cases where unrestrained passengers in the back seat have been slung to the front, killing the driver or front side passenger. You should avoid passengers being in your car if there are no seatbelts for them.

Seatbelt Requirements

The driver is legally responsible to ensure that any rider under the age of fourteen wears seatbelts. If you have kids under the age of 3 in your vehicle they should be lodged in an adequate child restraint. This especially holds true for the front seat. Remember, whatever you do make sure that you do not face the child backwards in their car seat. Not only is it illegal however, in the case of an air bags dislodge it could suffocate or kill the child. Once a child is over 4 foot 5 inches or twelve years of age they can then use the seatbelt. For passengers who are age fourteen or over they must wear a seatbelt and it is their duty to do so.

The Penalties

For the driver it is considered an offense to allow front or rear seat passengers to ride without a seatbelt if there are seatbelts available.

Driving without a seatbelt can land you a fine up to 500 pounds. If you do take a fixed penalty notice, you typically will be fined about 30 pounds so it really depends. If you accept neither you can be sent to court and slapped with a 500 pound fine.

In the event that you do not ensure that a child under 14 years of age is restrained properly (in either a child restraint or seatbelt) in regards to legal guidelines and specifications you can be fined up to 500 pounds. At this current time there are no penalty points issued to your driver’s license for seatbelt offenses.