Seat Belts and the Law in Ontario, CANADA
Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act (HTA) doesn’t require vehicle owners to install seatbelts into vehicles not originally manufactured with such. However, please note the information below.
It is not clear what is meant by “classic cars”. However, section 9 and 10 of Ontario Regulation 613 provides some exceptions to the above-noted requirements under S.106 HTA for older vehicles and those originally manufactured without seatbelts.
Section 10 provides an exemption for drivers and passengers from wearing a seat belt if a motor vehicle was manufactured without seat belt assemblies for each seating position and the vehicle was not modified to include seatbelt assemblies.
In the case of child passengers, this exemption doesn’t exempt a driver from his or her obligation to ensure that a young child passenger, under age 8, is secured using the prescribed child car seat restraint or booster seat system. Drivers are legally obligated to ensure that these young child passengers are secured in the appropriate child car seat restraint or booster seat system.
This exemption however, allows that the drivers don’t have to ensure that older children, between the ages of 8 and 16 years, are secured with a seatbelt assembly if the vehicle wasn’t manufactured with them.