PETALING JAYA : The import of dummy seat belt buckles and latch plates used to mute warning beepers will be outlawed from Dec 31 in a new regulation aimed at improving road safety.
The federal gazette issued on June 24 under subsection 31(1) of the Customs Act 1967 [Act 235] states that “a dummy buckle, seat-belt alarm stopper, seat-belt clip extender or any other similar accessory or device intended to be inserted into a seat-belt buckle to disable or bypass the safety reminder and rendering the seat-belt mechanism inoperative” are prohibited from import from all countries.
The Transport Ministry had mulled the ban in February after the Road Transport Department had raised the alarm on a trend of using the device after inspections found it fitted in the vehicles of a third of motorists.
Used to prevent car sensors from beeping when drivers and passengers do not buckle up, the veiled dangers of the device has been well-studied.
According to research by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) Vehicle Safety and Biomechanics Centre, the use of dummy seat belt buckles has contributed to several fatal road accidents, significantly increasing the risk of serious injury or death due to the absence of a functioning seat belt, even if airbags deploy correctly during a crash.
The findings showed that this is because airbags and seat belts are designed to function together where seat belts restrain the body during a collision while airbags provide additional cushioning to minimise the injuries from impact with a vehicle dashboard or steering wheel.
In a crash test conducted by Miros at a speed of 56kph showed that a dummy buckle installed in the rear passenger seat of a vehicle had detached and caused severe injuries to both rear and front passengers during the simulation.
A survey by Miros also revealed that 12.9% of 326 respondents admitted to using dummy buckles, prompting the institute to call for regulatory action to prohibit both the sale and use of dummy buckles in Malaysia.
The devices sold openly in physical shops and online merchant platforms come in two variations of either a dummy seat belt buck or simple latch plate prices between RM1.50 and RM8.
