DOVER — The Delaware Office of Highway Safety is reminding drivers about the lifesaving benefits of wearing a seat belt this spring during the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s national Click It or Ticket high-visibility enforcement effort.

Delaware is joining the national seat belt campaign, which coincides with the Memorial Day holiday and runs from today to June 5.

For this year’s Click It or Ticket seat belt mobilization effort, NHTSA is asking all states to participate in the kickoff event — Border to Border, a one-day, four-hour national seat belt awareness event May 23 that is coordinated by participating state highway safety offices and their respective law enforcement liaisons.

The B2B program aims to increase law enforcement participation by coordinating highly visible seat belt enforcement and providing seat belt fact sheets for drivers at heavily traveled state borders.

For more information on the Click It or Ticket effort, visit NHTSA.gov/ciot.
In Delaware, younger occupants are the most likely to be involved in unrestrained crashes.

Additionally, almost twice as many males were killed in crashes compared to females. Studies show that males have a lower seat belt usage rate than females.

Of the males killed in crashes, more than half (66%) were unrestrained compared to 34% of females that were not buckled up.

“Over the past year in Delaware, 49 percent of people that were killed in crashes were not wearing a seat belt,” said Kimberly Chesser, director of the Delaware Office of Highway Safety. “We see the results of not wearing a seat belt all the time. We see the loss of life and, so often, it could have been prevented.

“It’s imperative we get the message out about the importance of seat belt safety to prevent these tragedies from happening.”

OHS is asking drivers and passengers across the country to make buckling up an automatic habit. Whether an individual rides in the front seat or the back, and no matter which car seat or booster seat a child may use, everyone’s seat belt should be buckled every trip.

Buckling up is the simplest thing a person can do to limit injury or save their life during a crash.

“You may think you’re safe in a certain vehicle, or on a certain road, but the truth is, you’re safest when you buckle up, no matter what,” said Sarah Cattie, senior traffic safety program manager. “Unfortunately, many families are suffering because their loved ones refused to follow this simple step.”

In addition to increased patrols, DHS wants to educate drivers and passengers on the dangers of unbuckled driving and the correct way to buckle up safely:

Consequences of not wearing a seat belt:

• Buckling up helps keep people safe and secure inside their vehicle, whereas not buckling up can result in being totally ejected from the vehicle in a crash, which is almost always deadly.

• Airbags are not enough to protect individuals; in fact, the force of an airbag can seriously injure or even kill a person if they’re not buckled up.

• Improperly wearing a seat belt, such as putting the strap below your arm, puts you or your children at risk in a crash.

Guidelines to buckle up safely:

• The lap belt and shoulder belt are secured across the pelvis and rib cage, which are better able to withstand crash forces than other parts of a person’s body.

• Place the shoulder belt across the middle of the chest and away from the neck.

• The lap belt rests across the hips, not the stomach.

• Never put the shoulder belt behind the back or under an arm.
For more information on the campaign, statistics and education, visit arrivealivede.com/buckle-up.