A HARD-HITTING advertising campaign urging parents to make sure their children are properly restrained in cars will be launched this month.

North Yorkshire Police and the county council's road safety team have put together a radio advert to drive home the consequences of youngsters being unrestrained.

Both organisations want to increase the number of children wearing seat belts or fastened into child seats.

Currently, 83 per cent of front seat passengers and 73 per cent of rear seat passengers are properly restrained.

The road safety team and the police want to see the figures rise to 95 per cent and 90 per cent respectively by 2010.

The new advert tells the story of a four-year-old boy called Toby. He doesn't like wearing his restraint and so is left to travel without it in his parents' car.

He dies after a car accident when he goes through the windscreen.

It ends: "Toby died at the side of the road, in his mother's arms, just four years old. Safety was down to his mum and his dad. With child seats and seat belts, there's too much at stake, it isn't a choice for a child to make."

The advertisements will be heard on local radio stations, including Stray FM and Radio York, from the middle of July.