‘Click It’ effort is on this holiday
Law enforcement push for seat belt safety aims at weekend travelers.
With Memorial Day weekend, travel on the roads gets busy but it can also become dangerous, officials warn.
Coinciding with it is the national “Click It or Ticket” safety belt enforcement campaign kickoff, which will run through May 31. During this time, local law enforcement agencies will make a greater effort to stop drivers, and their passengers, who aren’t wearing seat belts.
Of the 242,853 citations handed out in Florida for seat belt violations in 2014, 18,095 were to people in Palm Beach County, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
Ralph Salvas, a program manager for the Florida Department of Transportation, said law enforcement agencies are asked to make an extra push three times a year: at Thanksgiving, in March around some school spring breaks and again on Memorial Day weekend.
In 2014 Florida Seat Belt Use Report, 88.8 percent of drivers observed wore their seat belts, the highest use to date since the Department of Transportation started recording statistics in 1993. In 2013, 87.2 percent of drivers in the state used seat belts.
In Palm Beach County, 92.2 percent of the 2,500 drivers observed wore seat belts, according to the report.
Salvas said that since Florida made it a primary offense for drivers and their passengers to skip seat belts in 2009, Florida has been above the national average for seat belt usage. In 2013, the national average was 87 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. They
hope to break 90 percent next year, he said.
In horrific crashes, seat belts can save lives, officials say, but not using them can have tragic consequences. In a May 6 rollover on northbound Interstate 95, one young man was killed and another remains in the hospital weeks after they were thrown from their vehicle. None of the six occupants in the car were wearing seat belts, according to the Florida Highway Patrol report.
Sgt. Mark Wysocky
and
Palm