As the Memorial Day holiday approaches, the Saline County Sheriff’s Office reminds drivers how important it is to wear a seat belt. 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 plan to maximize our presence on county roads and highways in an effort to ensure our drivers are safely and correctly buckled up,” said Saline County Sheriff Rodney Wright. “Seat belt use is not only vital for the driver in surviving a crash, but for passengers as well. Buckling up is the single easiest thing you can do to reduce the likelihood of being injured.”
For this year’s Click It or Ticket seat belt mobilization effort, NHTSA is asking all states to participate in the kickoff event, Border to Border (B2B), a one-day national seat belt awareness event on May 20 that is coordinated by participating state highway safety offices and their respective law enforcement liaisons. The B2B program aims to increase law enforcement participation by coordinating highly visible seat belt enforcement and providing seat belt fact sheets for drivers at heavily traveled, highly visible state border checkpoints.
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. In Saline County, the maximum penalty for a seat belt violation is $70.
For more information on the Click It or Ticket mobilization, please visit www.nhtsa.gov/ciot.