Buckle Up or Pay a Fine

Between May 24 and June 6, Texas state troopers and local law officers will work together to step up enforcement of the state’s safety belt laws as the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) kicks off its 9th annual Click It or Ticket campaign.

This year, law officers could be issuing more tickets if Texas drivers and passengers fail to obey new safety belt laws that the Texas Legislature passed in 2009.  Adult passengers in the backseat now must be buckled up, and children younger than eight years of age must ride in a child safety seat or booster seat unless they are taller than four feet nine inches.  Failure to buckle up in the backseat or to secure a child in a booster seat could result in a fine ranging from $25 to $250, plus court costs.

Booster seats help protect children who have outgrown their child safety seats, but are still too small to be restrained properly by adult-sized safety belts.  In the event of a vehicle crash, children buckled into booster seats are far less likely to be injured or killed than children wearing only safety belts.  Booster seats are particularly effective in side-impact crashes, which are the deadliest crashes for children.

Wherever an adult or child is sitting, each must be restrained correctly.  Restrained drivers and passengers have a much better chance of surviving a serious vehicle crash than someone not wearing a safety belt.

Since the Click It or Ticket campaign began in 2002, the state’s safety belt use rate has increased from 76 percent to almost 93 percent.  Safety experts estimate the rise in the number of motorists who now fasten their seat belts has resulted in 2,400 fewer traffic fatalities and prevented more than 56,300 injuries.

According to the Texas Transportation Institute, Texas drivers who are the least likely to buckle up continue to be men, teenage boys and pickup drivers and passengers.  Half of all pickup truck drivers killed in traffic crashes were not buckled up.

I am pleased that Texans are belting up; however, I am concerned that they are not hanging up their cell phones.  In 2008, distracted driving caused 103,526 crashes in Texas, a number that included 524 deaths.  Distracted drivers under the age of 20 were involved in more fatal crashes than any other age group.

While texting and talking are major distractions, drivers also are distracted if they are reading, eating, putting on makeup, or reaching for something inside the vehicle.

Anything that takes drivers’ eyes off the road and their minds off driving should be avoided.  If Texans buckled up and hung up before they started their vehicles, we could prevent thousands of injuries and save thousands of lives every year.