Chapter 4 — Your Driving 41 Protecting Yourself and Your Passengers Seat Belts Exemptions to the seat belt law: Child Safety No one can be completely protected from being in a crash. You cannot predict  what other drivers will do. During an average lifetime of driving, we face about a one-in-three chance of being seriously injured or killed in a motor vehicle crash. The driver and all passengers in a motor vehicle manufactured with seat belts  shall have a seat belt properly fastened about his or her body at all times when  the vehicle is in forward motion on a street or highway in this state. Children  under age 16 should be in an age and weight appropriate restraint. Under the  seat belt law, all occupants MUST wear seat belts even if the vehicle is equipped  with air bags. If the vehicle is equipped with automatic shoulder harnesses, the  lap belt MUST also be worn. Each year hundreds of North Carolina children are seriously injured or killed  in automobile crashes. In fact, the number one threat to the lives of young  children is the automobile accident. Only crash-tested child safety seats can  reduce these tragedies. Since small children cannot make safety choices for  themselves, adults must make sure children are protected every time they  •  A driver or occupant of a noncommercial motor vehicle with a medical or  physical condition that prevents appropriate restraint by a seat belt or with a professionally certified mental phobia against the wearing of vehicle restraints; •  A motor vehicle operated by a rural letter carrier of the United States Postal  Service while performing duties as a rural letter carrier, and a motor vehicle  operated by a newspaper delivery person while actually engaged in delivery  of newspapers along the person's specified route; •  A driver or passenger frequently stopping and leaving the vehicle or delivering  property from the vehicle if the speed of the vehicle between stops does not  exceed 20 miles per hour; •  Any vehicle registered and licensed as a property-carrying vehicle while being  used for agricultural purposes in intrastate commerce. •  A motor vehicle not required to be equipped with seat belts by law; and •  Any occupant of a motor home other than the driver and front seat  passengers, provided the motor home has at least four of the following  facilities: cooking, refrigeration or icebox, self-contained toilet, heating or air- conditioning, portable water supply system with a faucet and sink, separate  110-115-volt electrical power supply or an LP gas supply. •  Situations where all seating positions equipped with child passenger restraint  systems or seat belts are occupied;