San Francisco, Feb 9 (IANS): To remind passengers to wear seatbelts, ride-hailing major Uber has come up with a new feature that will emit a series of chimes until passengers buckle their seatbelts.

Previously, Uber drivers would rely on signage to encourage passengers to secure their seatbelts. Now the company wants to cut out the middleman and just use a beeping noise to get the job done, reports The Verge.

In this approach, the driver's app will issue a series of beeps, while the rider's app will send push notifications reminding them to buckle up.

Most vehicles in the US have seat belt reminders built-in, but that does not typically cover rear-seat passengers. The app notifications are meant to serve as a workaround, the report said.

"Buckling up is one of the most effective ways to help keep yourself and others in the vehicle safe in a crash," Kristin Smith, Uber's head of global road safety policy, was quoted as saying in a statement.

"By leveraging technology to remind riders to buckle up, we hope to increase seatbelt use and potentially save lives," Smith added.

The report mentioned that the number of deaths on US roads is rising at an alarming rate.

Although fewer people were on the road at the beginning of the pandemic, about 38,680 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2020, an increase of about 2,500 from 2019, and deaths surged further in the first half of 2021, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).