Dubai: A Dubai-based non-profit organisation that actively campaigned for children to be buckled in car seats is closing down next month.
Lesley Cully, 43 who founded ‘Buckle Up In The Back’ in May 2010 made this announcement on her campaign’s Facebook page last weekend.
“This is undoubtedly the hardest update I have ever posted,” read her post on September 20.
“It is now time to renew the business licence and after a very long and thoughtful discussion with my husband, I have decided not to renew it this year and I am now in the formal process of closing the campaign (sic),” the post went on.
Educating residents
Cully, from Surrey, England set up the campaign four years ago mainly to educate Dubai residents on the use of seat belts and age appropriate car seats after seeing many children travelling without proper restraint in the back of cars. “The campaign is mentally, financially and often physically exhausting and so the time has come to stop,” the mother of two further said in the post.
The campaign, while it ran its course, received great support not only from a host of corporates including Chevrolet, Emirates Driving Institute, Graco and Hertz but also from various schools in Dubai.
“I have stopped presentations and will be confirming this by email to any schools that have been in contact to arrange for the coming months,” she said of the campaign’s last month in existence, in the post.
When XPRESS contacted Cully, she said she will however continue to raise awareness about the risks of not buckling up children in the back seat.
“I genuinely thought when I started four years ago it wouldn’t take this long for a rear seat belt law to be established even though I know it has been discussed at the Federal level here,” said the quality and compliance manager turned full-time mother-turned-social campaigner. “I will continue to hope that the UAE will, one day, sit up and realise that a simple law and its enforcement would save thousands of lives and a law will be in place,” she said.
There is no law in the UAE yet that mandates passengers in back seats of cars to fasten their seat belts. In May this year, the Federal Traffic Council (FTC) proposed that passengers in a vehicle’s back seat must fasten their seat belts and those who don’t will be considered offenders and will be issued fines.
According to Maj Gen Mohammad Said Al Zafein, Assistant to the Dubai Police Chief for Operations Affairs and Chairman of the Federal Traffic Council, violators will be fined Dh400 and given four black points.
