The SAFE Delaware County Coalition along with the Ohio State Highway Patrol, Delaware Public Health District, and Delaware Area Career Center and are joining forces for the Click It or Ticket campaign, which runs now through June 2 surrounding the Memorial Day holiday. The purpose of the campaign is to spread awareness of the importance of wearing a safety belt through education and enforcement for those who drive on Delaware County roadways.
This year’s Click It or Ticket campaign kickoff event will take place at noon on Tuesday, May 14, at the Delaware Area Career Center located at 4565 Columbus Pike, Delaware. Following the kickoff event, coalition members will be at the I-71 South rest stop taking SAFE selfies with motorists and talking to them about the importance of seat belt use.
According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, there have been over 270,000 unbelted crashes on Ohio roadways in the last five years. Of those crashes, there were more than 2,600 fatalities due to not wearing an available safety belt.
“Properly wearing a safety belt saves lives and reduces the risk of injuries,” said Lt. Robert Curry, commander of the Delaware Post. “When a safety belt is improperly worn, the potential for crash-related injuries and death increases dramatically.”
Curry added that Ohio’s safety belt law remains a secondary violation, however, troopers will continue zero-tolerance enforcement when motorists are stopped for other violations and are found to not be wearing their safety belt. Since 2019, more than 274,000 people have been issued seat belt citations.
Additional safety belt enforcement and educational information can be found on the Patrol’s Ohio Statistics and Analytics for Traffic Safety (OSTATS) Safety Belt dashboard.
This story was submitted by the Delaware Public Health District.
