The US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has kicked off the 2016 Click It or Ticket safety campaign. Putting on your seat belt is one of the simplest and safest choices anybody can make, so do some people still need to get the message?
US national seat belt use rate increased to 88.5 percent in 2014, but NHTSA data show that almost half of the passenger vehicle occupants (49 percent) killed that year had not buckled up. The situation appears worse at night – 57 percent of vehicle occupants killed at night were not wearing their seat belts, compared to 41 percent killed during daytime. To drive home the point, NHTSA compared the stats with other activities that people probably think are more dangerous – watch the video above.
NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind wants people to buckle up: “We have made enormous progress as a nation in increasing seat belt use, but far too many people are still dying because they are not buckled up during crashes,” he said. “Before you even turn the key, make sure that everyone in your car has their seat belt on, every trip, day and night.”
NHTSA’s Click It or Ticket safety campaign aims to change the attitudes of the people who are not using their seat belts. Information campaigns about the benefit coincide with police cracking down on anyone violating their state’s seat belt law.
Thousands of Americans are alive today because a seat belt saved them during a crash. In 2014, the use of seat belts in passenger vehicles saved an estimated 12,802 lives. From 2010 to 2014, seat belts saved an estimated 63,000 lives. That matters because auto safety advances in the US help advance auto safety globally.
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