During this year’s national Click It or Ticket seat belt campaign, which will take place May 23 through June 5, 2022, The Toledo Police Department will be teaming up with law enforcement nationwide for a Border to Border (B2B) kickoff event. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is asking all states to participate in B2B, a one-day, 4-hour national seat belt awareness event on May 23, which is coordinated by participating state highway safety offices and their respective law enforcement liaisons.
The B2B initiative aims to increase law enforcement participation by coordinating highly visible seat belt enforcement for drivers at state border checkpoints. According to NHTSA, in 2020, there were 10,893 unbuckled passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in the United States. In that same year, 58% 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 and the B2B kickoff event is nighttime enforcement.
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 2020, more than half (55%) were unrestrained. For females killed in crashes, 43% were not buckled up. Vehicle type: There seems to be a misconception among those who drive and ride in pickup trucks that their larger vehicles will protect them better than other vehicle types would in a crash. The numbers say otherwise: 62% of pickup truck occupants who were killed in 2020 were not buckled. That’s compared to 47% of passenger car occupants who were not wearing seat belts when they were killed. Regardless of vehicle type, seat belt use is the single most effective way to stay alive in a crash.
Seating position: Too many people wrongly believe they are safe in the back seat unrestrained. Fifty percent of all front-seat passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2020 were unrestrained, but 59% of those killed in back seats were unrestrained.
Rural versus urban locations: People who live in rural areas might believe their crash exposure is lower, but in 2020, there were 11,922 passenger vehicle fatalities in rural locations, compared to 11,683 fatalities in urban locations. Out of those fatalities, 52% of those killed in the rural locations were not wearing their seat belts, compared to 49% in urban locations.
For more information on the Click It or Ticket mobilization, please visit NHTSA.gov/ciot.
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