As part of its road safety programme, volunteer Arval employees from their HQ in Swindon are trialling an innovative seatbelt enhancement device to assess its safety and posture benefits.

Twenty of the 850 Arval employees are taking part in the six week trial, which is due to finish at the end of May.

The CG-Lock (CG stands for centre of gravity) is a small palm sized device that clips onto existing seatbelts to eliminate the slack in the lapbelt, keeping the user in the safest possible position.

Graham Cox from CG-Lock said: “As RoSPA highlights, the safest way to travel is to have no slack in the lapbelt portion of the seatbelt and have it running firmly across the hips. Without the CG-Lock this can only be achieved by repeatedly sitting upright and pulling the diagonal section of the seatbelt to remove the slack.

“Most people don’t do this and so the lapbelt ‘rides up’ off the hips onto the stomach. This is not the position at which EuroNCAP tests are performed and significantly increases risk of injury should an accident occur. The CG-Lock keeps the lapbelt exactly where it should be, firmly across the pelvis.”

Tracey Scarr, fleet and road safety manager at Arval, said: “Seatbelts are a really important area to look at because while there has been a lot of focus on child seats, adult restraints haven’t seen much development.

“There has been a significant amount of research into the problems associated with driver back pain and this is one area we want to try and help our drivers and customers address.

“The CG-Lock has been recommended by some top healthcare professionals to reduce back pain and has also been found to improve driver safety so we wanted to test it.

“Recent winners of several fleet safety awards, Arval is conducting this trial because we are passionate about improving safety and comfort for fleet drivers but wouldn't recommend anything to our customers without testing it first."

All of the Arval employees taking part in the trial are testing the CG-Lock for adult use; however some of them are also trialling the technology on child booster seats with findings expected in June.