The Delaware Office of Highway Safety (OHS) in partnership with law enforcement are reminding motorists to Click It or Ticket. Aimed at enforcing seat belt use to help keep families safe, the national seat belt campaign will take place May 14 through May 28, concurrent with the start of the summer travel season.
“As the Memorial Day weekend approaches and the summer vacation season ramps up, we want to keep Delawareans safe, and make sure people are doing the one thing that can save them in a crash: buckling up,” says Jana Simpler, Director of the Delaware Office of Highway Safety (OHS). “If the enforcement crackdown wakes people up to the dangers of riding in a vehicle unrestrained, we’ll consider it a success. Buckling up is such a simple task that can keep you and your family safe in the car. But it’s more than that. Buckling up is the law. Many injuries and fatalities could have been prevented with the simple click of a seat belt.”
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nearly half (48%) of the passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2016 were unrestrained. At night from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., that number soared to 56 percent of those killed. That’s why one focus of the Click It or Ticket campaign is nighttime enforcement.
In 2017, there were 200 unrestrained crashes in Delaware and 34 unrestrained vehicle occupants who were killed in a crash. Delaware law enforcement agencies – both state and local – will be taking a no-excuses approach to seat belt law enforcement, writing citations day and night during the mobilization period. Seat belts save lives, and everyone—front seat and back, child and adult—needs to remember to buckle up every trip, every time.
