Citation and commencement

1.  These Regulations may be cited as the Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts) (Amendment) Regulations 2005 and shall come into force on 1st March 2005.

Amendment of the 1993 Regulations

2.—(1) Regulation 6(1) of the Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts) Regulations 1993(2) is amended as follows.

(2) For sub-paragraph (b) there is substituted—

“(b)the driver of or a passenger in a motor vehicle constructed or adapted for carrying goods, while on a journey which does not exceed 50 metres and which is undertaken for the purpose of delivering or collecting any thing;”.

(3) In sub-paragraph (d), for “regulation 9 of the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations 1987” there is substituted “regulation 17 of the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations 1999(3)”.

(4) In sub-paragraph (e), for “the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations 1987” there is substituted “the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations 1999”.

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

The Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts) Regulations 1993 require persons driving or riding in a motor vehicle to wear a seatbelt. This requirement is subject to a number of exemptions, including exemptions for the users of motor vehicles engaged in making local rounds of deliveries or collections of goods or mail and for “qualified drivers” supervising learner drivers during reversing manoeuvres.

These Regulations amend those Regulations by:

(a)substituting for the delivery drivers' exemption an exemption for the driver of, or a passenger in, a goods vehicle while on a journey which does not exceed 50 metres and is undertaken for the purpose of delivery or collection;

(b)replacing the reference to regulation 9 of the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations 1987 with a reference to regulation 17 the Regulations of 1999 (S.I. 1999/2864) which has superseded it and defines “qualified driver” differently.

They also make a further textual amendment consequent upon the revocation of the 1987 Regulations.

A Regulatory Impact Assessment of the effect of this instrument on the costs of business has been prepared and is available from the Department for Transport, Road Safety Division, Zone 2/11, Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DR. Copies have been placed in the libraries of both Houses of Parliament.