The Road Traffic (Removal of Exemption from Wearing Seat Belts by Taxi Drivers) Regulations 2004 removed, with effect from 1 July 2004, the exemption whereby the driver of a taxi, hackney or limousine was not required to wear a seat-belt while driving such a vehicle. The question of the removal of other exemptions will be examined in the context of the legislation to give effect to EU Directive 2003/20/EC amending EU Directive 91/671/EEC relating to the compulsory use of safety belts in motor vehicles.
EU Directive 2003/20/EC requires safety belts to be used where they are fitted. The directive must be transposed into national law by 9 May 2006. Specific measures in the directive relating to children include prohibitions on the carrying in a car or goods vehicle of a child under three years of age unless restrained in an appropriate child restraint system; over three years of age and less than 150 cm in the front passenger seat unless restrained in an appropriate child restraint system.
The directive also provides for the termination of the three-for-two rule, where three children may be counted as two passengers when reckoning passenger capacity of a bus, for buses fitted with safety belts. Proposals to extend the requirements for safety belts to be fitted to all seats in all new vehicles, except for buses used on stage stop routes have been developed at EU level. Following the approval of these proposals by the European Parliament in May 2005 the way is clear for the Council of Ministers to adopt them as directives so that all new vehicles, including school buses, entering into service from a date yet to be settled will require to be fitted with safety belts.