A ROAD safety group in Lancashire is "100 per cent behind" plans to tighten the rules on strapping children into cars.

The Lancashire Road Safety Partnership, which includes Blackburn with Darwen Council and health authorities across the county, has backed a new European initiative to make people more aware that seatbelts save lives.

Euro MPs in Strasbourg approved a bill to ban children under three from travelling without a car seat and insist youngsters under 4ft 11ins have booster cushions.

Children under three can currently travel unrestrained in the back seat of a car if no child seat is available, and children under 11 can use adult seatbelts.

Linda Robertson, of the Lancashire Road Safety Partnership, said: "The partnership is 100 per cent behind anything which enforces the wearing of seatbelts.

"We need more people in Lancashire to realise that not wearing seatbelts in the back can kill front seat passengers and drivers."

The new rules, which will also make it compulsory to wear seatbelts on coaches, will come into force in three years time.