TWIN FALLS, Idaho – You’ve heard the message: seat belts save lives.

To help promote travel safety, the Idaho Transportation Department Office of Highway Safety and its law enforcement partners remind Idaho drivers to “Click It Don't Risk It.”

The seat belt campaign will run May 22 through June 4, when law enforcement agencies across the state will be on the lookout for unrestrained drivers. It is part of a nationwide effort to improve seat belt usage across the country, ITD says in a news release.

“Our law enforcement personnel see firsthand the loss of life when people refuse to buckle up,” Sherry Jenkins of the Office of Highway Safety said in the prepared statement. “It’s such a simple thing, and it should be an automatic next step after sitting down in a vehicle.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nearly half of the 22,441 passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2015 were unrestrained. In Idaho, 93 people killed in car crashes were unrestrained; more than half of those deaths could have been prevented by a seat belt, ITD says.

“Most people in Idaho wear their seatbelts,” Jenkins said. “We had an observed seat belt rate of 81 percent in 2015 but have to do better – it’s easy to do and it saves lives.”

Source: Idaho Department of Transportation

140805522
Tomwang112/ThinkStock
loading...

More From 95.7 KEZJ