As the Memorial Day holiday approaches, the Fort Smith Police Department is reminding all drivers of the importance of seat belt use.
This annual campaign is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s national Click It or Ticket high-visibility enforcement effort that runs from May 20 to June 2, 2019.
Aimed at enforcing seat belt use to help keep families safe, the national seat belt campaign runs concurrent with the busy travel season.
“During the Click It or Ticket campaign, we’ll be working with our fellow law enforcement officers across local and state lines to ensure the message gets out to drivers and passengers,” said Lt. Stephen Krumm with the FSPD. “We cannot overstate the importance of wearing a seat belt. It’s the law, but it’s more than that: By far, buckling up is the simplest thing you can do to limit injury or save your life during a crash. We see the results of not wearing a seat belt all the time. We see the loss of life. So often, it could have been prevented with the simple click of a seat belt.”
According to NHTSA, in 2017, there were 10,076 unbuckled passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in the United States. In that same year, 55 percent of passenger vehicle occupants killed at night (6 p.m.–5:59 a.m.) were not wearing their seat belts. That’s why one focus of the Click It or Ticket campaign is nighttime enforcement.
Participating law enforcement agencies will be taking a no-excuses approach to seat belt law enforcement, writing citations day and night. Almost twice as many males were killed in crashes as compared to females, with lower belt use rates, too. Of the males killed in crashes in 2017, more than half (51%) were unrestrained. For females killed in crashes, 39 percent were not buckled up.
“If the enforcement crackdown wakes people up to the dangers of unrestrained driving, we’ll consider our mission to be a success,” said Lt. Krumm. “If you know a friend or a family member who does not buckle up when they drive, please ask them to consider changing their habits. Help us spread this lifesaving message before one more friend or family member is killed as a result of this senseless inaction. Seat belts save lives, and everyone—front seat and back, child and adult—needs to remember to buckle up—every trip, every time.”
For more information on the Click It or Ticket mobilization, please visit www.nhtsa.gov/ciot.
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