West Virginia Law Enforcement will be conducting extra seat belt patrols statewide to spread the message Click It or Ticket throughout the month of November.
It is important for West Virginians to understand that Click It or Ticket is not about the citations; it’s about saving lives. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), seatbelts save over 12,000 lives annually. Unfortunately not all West Virginians are getting the message.
The West Virginia Governor’s Highway Safety Program (GHSP) conducts annual surveys to determine how many West Virginia drivers and passengers are actually buckling up. Just sixteen years ago less than half of West Virginia motorists were buckling up. This year’s survey revealed that 86.6% are now buckling up when riding in a vehicle. This also means that more than 13% of West Virginians are cutting their chance of surviving a crash in half.
In 2015, 99 of the 268 roadway fatalities were drivers and passengers that were not buckled up. “As State Troopers, one of the most difficult tasks we face is delivering a death message to family members following a crash,” stated Lieutenant Michael Baylous, of the West Virginia State Police. “It makes it even more difficult when the death was completely preventable if only their loved one had been wearing a seatbelt.”
In addition to State Police and Local Law Enforcement Agencies, Public Service Commission (PSC) Transportation Enforcement Officers are tasked with ensuring that commercial motor vehicles are being operated safely, and that includes observing seat belt laws. Bob Blankenship, Director of the PSC’s Transportation Division stated, “Our officers do everything they can to help reduce injuries and deaths on the road. Increasing safety on West Virginia’s highways is our number one concern.”
Common misconceptions about seatbelt use could be to blame, as NHTSA reports that:
• Too many people wrongly believe they are safe in the back seat unrestrained. Forty-seven percent of all front-seat passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2014 were unrestrained, but fifty-eight percent of those killed in back seats were unrestrained.
• People who live in rural areas might believe that their crash exposure is lower, but in 2014, there were 12,444 passenger vehicle fatalities in rural locations, compared to 8,332 fatalities in urban locations. Of those fatalities, fifty-one percent of those killed in the rural locations were not wearing their seat belts, compared to forty-five percent in urban locations.
• Those who drive and ride in pickup trucks seem to believe that their larger vehicles will protect them more than other vehicles would in a crash. But the numbers say otherwise. The reality is that sixty-one percent of pickup truck occupants who were killed in 2014 were not buckled up. That’s compared to forty-two percent of passenger car occupants who were killed while not wearing their seat belts. Regardless of vehicle type, seat belt use is the single most effective way to stay alive in a crash.
The GHSP has been conducting seat belt safety enforcement campaigns since 1998. The Click It or Ticket campaign focuses on enforcement, safety education, and law enforcement officers saving lives on West Virginia’s roadways.
For more information about Click It or Ticket, call the GHSP at 304-926-2509.
