Summer Safe Driving Initiative kicks off

Georgia State Patrol is partnering with the Tennessee and Alabama highway patrols as part of an East Coast summer safe driving initiative.

Law enforcement officers from those three agencies and the Georgia Office of Highway Safety met Monday, May 18, at the Georgia Welcome Center in Ringgold to discuss this safety program.

The Summer Safe Driving Initiative kicked off Memorial Day (Monday, May 25) week and will see every state along the East Coast working together to remind motorists to buckle up and to watch for impaired and distracted drivers and others who do not follow the rules of the road.

Lt. Don Stultz, of GSP Post 41 in LaFayette, said law enforcement will have a heavy presence along Interstate 75 in a concentrated patrol effort to watch for those types of drivers as a means of reducing highway fatalities.

Stultz said fatalities along the Georgia roadways this year are already up 33 percent from 2014.

According to a Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety press release:

The “Border to Border” initiative will launch in conjunction with the traditional May campaign of “Click-it or Ticket,” which focuses on seatbelt safety for the Memorial Day holiday.

The GOHS will be joining this effort by hosting media events in the Atlanta, Chattanooga, Savannah and Valdosta media markets.

“The National Highway Traffic safety Administration reports there were 9,580 unbelted crash deaths nationwide in 2013. In Georgia, those numbers are decreasing, but the state still experienced approximately 341 such deaths in 2013. In addition, unbelted crash deaths are more likely to happen at night with 59 percent happening between 6 p.m. and 5:59 a.m.,” the release said.

“Seatbelts save thousands of lives every year, but far too many motorists are still not buckling up, especially at night when the risk of getting in a crash is even greater,” Georgia GOHS director Harris Blackwood said. “We want to make this the safest summer possible. Buckling up is not optional. It’s the difference between life and death in a crash.”