I HAVE a confession to make - I did not always wear seat belts.

And it's because of a C-word that Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew himself has said is very dangerous: complacency.

After all, what are the chances of me dying in an accident when I am protected by the mighty steel shell of the car?

It is the very same reason why many people do not buckle up as well, going by past newspaper reports.

In the wake of the tragic accident last Thursday, when eight-year-old Russell Koh died after being flung out of a minibus, it is time to question why Singapore lacks a seat belt culture.

An informal survey The Straits Times did along Toa Payoh Lorong 1 in late February revealed that 23 per cent of the 140 cars which whizzed past had drivers who did not buckle up. And 21 out of 23 cars had back-seat passengers who did not wear seat belts.

In contrast, the British are more renowned to wearing seat belts.

A survey by the UK Department of Transport last August showed that 84 per cent of back-seat passengers wore seat belts and almost 95 per cent of drivers and front-seat passengers did so.

According to the country's government website, it was also compulsory to strap up in minibuses in Britain.

In Singapore, a driver who does not belt up or insist that his passenger does would be fined $120 and three demerit points, according to the Land Transport Authority website. Errant passengers would also be fined $120.

It was believed that wearing seat belts saved the lives of four youths in late February, after a spate of accidents involving the death of six young people earlier this year.

The car involved in that accident was an almost-new Mazda RX-8. The crash caused a mangled wreck but fortunately, the four passengers suffered only minor injuries.

It is understood that they wore seat belts. This could have saved their lives and prevented serious injury. Still, despite the law and the advice that belting up could potentially save your life, some remain adamant about being seat belt-free.

My friend, a 22-year-old undergraduate at a local university who declined to be named, said: "It is so uncomfortable, it strangles me."

But what if you died because of your reluctance to wear a seat belt? "Suay (Hokkien for unlucky) lor," she said.

No wonder MM Lee replied the way he did when asked by reporters why he warned against complacency time and again in his speeches.

"Because most people believe that bad things will happen to others, not to themselves," he said.

Parents asked why school buses did not have seat belts.

But even if school buses installed seat belts and the law made it compulsory for the children to wear them, would they have done it?

Probably not.

After all, if adults - who are the supposedly older and wiser lot - aren't doing it, why would they?

This complacent mindset in thinking that we won't become another traffic statistic in the newspaper must change, before the dangerous C-word costs us not just our national reputation but also our lives.

It's time to buckle up, everyone.

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