Don Nail: Seat belts save lives
Open the door, sit down, start the car and take three seconds to buckle the seat belt. Last year 415 people lost their lives and an additional 436 others were seriously injured in North Carolina as a result of not completing this simple, essential three-second step.
The North Carolina Highway Safety Program partnered with state and local law enforcement from May 23 to June 5 in the annual national Click It or Ticket enforcement campaign. The campaign reminds motorists that wearing a seat belt can save their lives.
Gov. Pat McCrory stresses the importance of seat-belt usage, citing his recent accident in California after the Super Bowl as a good example. He was a passenger in the back seat of a California Highway Patrol car that was rear-ended. The governor credited wearing his seat belt as the reason he was not seriously injured.
North Carolina law requires all front- and back-seat passengers in a vehicle to buckle-up. Unfortunately, according to the latest data available, nearly half of backseat passengers in North Carolina killed in 2014 were not wearing a seat belt.
Stay safe by remembering: Click It or Ticket. Every seat, every time.
Don Nail
Director, N.C. Governor’s Highway Safety Program
Raleigh
This story was originally published June 7, 2016 at 4:14 PM with the headline "Don Nail: Seat belts save lives."