‘Click It Or Ticket’ Campaign Underway

May 24, 2015

The Florida Highway Patrol, the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement agencies are in the midst of their annual  “Click It or Ticket” crackdown designed to increase seat belt use and decrease motor vehicle fatalities across the county. The campaign will run day and night through May 31.

“Every day, unbuckled motorists are losing their lives in motor vehicle crashes,” said Sheriff David Morgan. During the “Memorial Day weekend and the summer vacation season, we want to make sure people are doing the one thing that can save them in a crash, buckling up.”

“Florida’s seat belt use rate stands at nearly 89 percent, which represents the highest use rate in Florida history,” said Colonel David Brierton, Director of the Florida Highway Patrol. “But that means there is still 10 percent of the population that doesn’t buckle up. We must do better if we are going to save lives and teach young people about the importance of using their seat belts.”

In 2013, about 59 percent of those who were killed in crashes because they weren’t wearing their seat belts were killed during the overnight hours of 6 p.m. and 5:59 a.m.  The Florida Highway Patrol reminds everyone that Florida law requires the use of seat belts by drivers, passengers in the front seat, and all children under the age of 18 in a motor vehicle.

Comments

4 Responses to “‘Click It Or Ticket’ Campaign Underway”

  1. David F. Hoyt on May 28th, 2015 8:39 am

    Back in 1974 while I was in the Navy, one of my collateral duties was driving an ambulance. The corpsman and I never had to body bag anyone who had been wearing a seat belt during an accident. Unfortunately we did have to body bag several individuals who had not been wearing seat belts. This made me a believer in seat belts and from that time on, every member of my family always had to buckle up before I started the engine. This also wound up saving both my wife’s and daughter’s lives during a serious accident many years later. To this day I insist that all my passengers, both front seats and back seats wear their seat belts.

  2. Grandma on May 25th, 2015 10:07 am

    @Sedition
    Just click it. End of story. It is for more reasons than just YOU. I surely don’t want to have your death or dismemberment on my conscience should someone hit me and I, in turn, should hit you. Click it and you won’t get “robbed”, Mr. Rebel!

  3. Sedition on May 24th, 2015 10:39 pm

    The only way they got the seat belt “law” passed back in the 80’s was to swear up and down that it would only be enforced as a secondary reason for a stop.
    As a classic example of giving the government an inch and them stealing 2 miles (see also the IRS), now the land pirates have it as a primary cause for a stop to help pad Escambia county government’s coffers.
    How much fun it must be to rob from the poor and give to the rich. Motorcycle riders are no longer required to wear head gear, but your wallet gets raped if you don’t wear a seat belt.

  4. Mike on May 24th, 2015 4:16 am

    i know from experience, that steering column hurts. These days steering wheels are designed to collapse, I guess so you don’t break your arms, but when your chest hits the center column, the shock to your heart is tremendous.

    Thank goodness for airbags, wish I’d had one in my old car (it was totaled, & looked very much like a fatality had occurred). Wear your seatbelts! :)