This video from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) calls attention to some of the “fake-out” moves drivers may try to use to pretend they are wearing a seat belt when passing by a police officer. Today kicks off the nationwide “Click It or Ticket” campaign, and it is Florida’s 12th consecutive year of participating in the program. After the Sunshine State enacted a primary seat belt law, use of seat belts in Florida reached an all-time high of 88.1 percent in 2011.
This year’s campaign will run until June 3, and police throughout Florida and across the nation will be identifying and ticketing unbuckled motorists. The NHTSA says that more than 3 million citations have been issued in conjunction with the annual crackdown over the last five years, or a ticket every other second.
According to the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), 1,450 people were killed in vehicles equipped with safety belts in 2010, but 54 percent of these victims were not wearing seat belts. NHTSA says that in 2010, seat belts saved an estimated 12,546 lives nationwide.
The point of the “Click It or Ticket” campaign is to reduce auto accident fatalities by promoting seat belt use. While the statistics demonstrate the danger of driving unbuckled, if the threat of a citation is not enough to persuade you to buckle up, on Friday we will bring up another lesser-discussed issue that should persuade all Florida drivers of the importance of buckling up.
Wooten Kimbrough, P.A. – Orlando personal injury lawyers