Click it or Ticket gears up for holiday traffic

The Arkansas State Police will begin a “Click or Ticket” campaign on Monday aimed to help keep travelers safe as residents prepare for Thanksgiving holiday travel.

“During the Click It or Ticket campaign, we’ll join forces with other law enforcement agencies across local and state lines to ensure the seat belt safety message gets out to all drivers and passengers,” said Colonel Bill Bryant, director of the Arkansas State Police and the Governor’s Highway Safety representative. “By far, buckling up is the simplest thing you can do to limit injury or save your life during a crash. We see the results of not wearing a seat belt all the time. The loss of life and devastating injuries that could’ve been prevented with the simple click of a seat belt is saddening when all anyone had to do was obey the law.”

According to the ASP, the importance of seatbelt use is even more imperative when traffic picks up during holiday seasons. The high visibility enforcement campaign will last for two weeks.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recorded that there were 9,778 unbuckled passengers killed in crashes in the United States in 2018.

“In that same year, 56 percent of passenger vehicle occupants killed at night (6 p.m.–5:59 a.m.) were not wearing their seat belts. The staggering statistics associated with nighttime travel has prompted the “Click It or Ticket” campaign to place added emphasis on evening enforcement. Participating law enforcement agencies will be taking a no-excuses approach to seat belt law enforcement, writing citations day and night.”

For more information about highway safety during Thanksgiving, go to www.trafficsafetymarketing.gov or call the Arkansas Highway Safety Office at 501-618-8136. For more on Arkansas’ ongoing Toward Zero Deaths campaign to eliminate preventable traffic fatalities, visit www.tzdarkansas.org.