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Edition 10			May 17, 2004
- CLICK IT OR TICKET & BUCKLE UP AMERICA-	Click It or Ticket & Buckle Up America Mobilizations Seat belts are critical to everyone’s safety. The failure to buckle up causes more fatalities than any other single traffic safety-related behavior. It is everyone’s responsibility to take the initiative to buckle up. This e-newsletter provides updated and useful resources on safety belts. The Click It or Ticket and Buckle Up America mobilizations are national campaigns to help increase the proper use of safety belts and child safety seats. Efforts are made to create changes that will save lives and prevent injuries. Click It or Ticket campaigns incorporate a zero tolerance enforcement of safety belt laws with a special emphasis on teens and young adults. It is a highly visible enforcement program that is designed to increase the use of safety belts and save people from death and serious injury on the streets and highways. The program uses educational radio messages recorded by chiefs and sheriffs, along with stepped-up enforcement, to send a strong message that safety belts save lives. Currently, Virginia’s statewide safety belt compliance rate is 73.5%. The goal of Click It or Ticket is to raise the compliance rate to at least 77%. The two-pronged approach of the campaign – issuing more tickets to unbelted motorists and the increasing publicity - makes the campaign particularly powerful in addressing these initiatives. Sources: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Naval Safety Center, and Smart Safe and Sober.			- SAFETY BELTS -
From May 24 to June 6, 2004, law enforcement agencies in hundreds of communities across the nation will be implementing Click It or Ticket and Buckle Up America campaigns. These initiatives will play a critical role in the effort to keep people safe on our nation’s roads and highways. To learn more about these campaigns or to become a partner, click on the following links. · Buckle Up America · Click It or Ticket					It has been proven that seat belts are the most effective safety devices in vehicles, estimated to save 9,500 lives each year.
					If 90% of Americans buckle up, more than 5,500 deaths and 132,000 injuries can be prevented each year.
					Researchers have shown that if a driver is unbuckled, children riding in that vehicle will not be buckled either 70% of the time.
					Males aged 16-25 are the least likely to buckle up, and they are the nation’s highest-risk drivers, and are involved with more drunk driving, speeding, and crashes.
					On average, inpatient hospital care costs for an unbelted crash victim are 50% higher than those for a belted crash victim.
				Fact Sheet Source: Naval Safety Center.
LINKS OF INTEREST:
Click It or Ticket Naval Safety Center DMV Safety Web Page CAPH E-Newsletter: Child Seats
George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Public Health has completed numerous traffic safety campaigns. To review and download these campaigns and others, visit: http://www.caph.gmu.edu/Campaigns.htm
Funded by a grant from Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles P.O. Box 27412 Richmond, VA 23269 http://www.dmv.state.va.us		George Mason University Center for the Advancement of Public Health 4400 University Dr., MS1F5 Fairfax, VA 22030-4444 http://www.caph.gmu.edu