Summer Kicks Off ‘Click It or Ticket’ Campaign

Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer. As families hit the roads for their first vacations of the year, the U.S. Department of Transportation has launched its annual “Click It or Ticket” seat belt enforcement campaign. 

Over 10,000 law enforcement officers from across the country will be participating in the seat belt crackdown, which runs through June 3. Nearly 500,000 people were ticketed during last year’s campaign for failure to wear their seat belts. 

Seat belts have been shown to dramatically reduce the risk of serious injuries and death in motor vehicle crashes. Yet transportation statistics show that seat belt use was only at 84 percent nationwide in 2011. 

In Kentucky, 576 individuals died in highway crashes, and nearly 60 percent of them were not wearing a seat belt at the time of their collisions. According to the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety, nearly half of those victims could have survived if they had been properly restrained. 

Officers will be looking for violators along Kentucky’s most busy roadways, according to police. In Lexington, that includes Man o’ War Boulevard, Nicholasville Road, Russell Cave Road, Tates Creek Road and Versailles Road, as well as downtown.

Last year, 21,348 seat belt and child restraint citations were issued to Kentucky motorists during the Click It or Ticket crackdown. 

In Kentucky, a seat belt violation is considered a primary traffic offense. That means that law enforcement officers can stop a motorist solely for not wearing a seat belt. Every driver and passenger is required to be restrained, and those who are unable for medical reasons must present documentation substantiating their claim. 

However, the penalty for not wearing a seat belt can be much worse than a citation and blemish on a driver’s record. Tens of thousands of people lose their lives each year simply because they did not use their safety belts, and those are preventable tragedies.  As Lexington personal injury lawyers, we strongly encourage all motorists to wear their seat belts and encourage others to do the same.