Click It or Ticket - Fact Sheet
Every hour, at least one person in this country dies because he or she did not buckle up. Failure to use seat belts contributes to more fatalities than any other single traffic safety-related behavior.
- Seat belts save lives everyday: Seat belts are the most effective safety devices in vehicles today, estimated to save 13,000 lives each year, while 7,000 people die because they did not use belts.
- Seat belts prevent injury: Seat belts and child safety seats help prevent injury by:
- Preventing ejection from the vehicle.
- Shifting crash forces to the strongest parts of the body’s structure.
- Spreading forces over a wide area of the body.
- Allowing the body to slow down gradually.
- Protecting the head and spinal cord.
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How to wear your seat belt: To get the most benefit out of your seat belt, you should wear it low over the pelvis with the bottom edge touching the tops of the thighs. The shoulder belt should be worn over the shoulder and across the chest, not under the arm and over the abdomen. Make certain that the shoulder belt is not worn so loosely that it does not slide off your shoulder. Pregnant women should wear the lap belt below the abdomen and the shoulder belt above the belly.
- The numbers show it: If 90 percent of motorists on our nation’s roads buckled up (the U.S. DOT’s goal for 2007), we would prevent an estimated 5,536 additional fatalities and 132,700 additional injuries annually.
- Wear your lap belt and shoulder belt: Research has found that proper use of lap/shoulder belts reduces the risk of fatal injury to front seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent, and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent (for occupants of light trucks, 60 percent and 65 percent respectively).
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Children must be restrained in safety seats: Child safety seats, used correctly in passenger cars, reduce the risk of death by 71 percent for infants and by 54 percent for toddlers. In light trucks, the corresponding reductions are 58 percent and 59 percent, respectively.
- Parents and caretakers are role models: Observations previously conducted showed that if a driver is wearing a seat belt, 86 percent of the time toddlers will also be restrained. If the driver is not wearing a seat belt, however, only 24 percent of the time will toddlers be restrained.
- Airbags alone don’t prevent injury: Even if your car has airbags, always wear your seat belt. Airbags are supplemental restraint systems that work with seat belts, not in place of them. They help protect adults in a frontal crash, but they don’t provide protection in side or rear impact crashes or in rollovers.
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There’s no excuse: Fear of entrapment during vehicle fire or submersion in water are not valid reasons for not wearing seat belts. Only one-half of one percent of all crashes ends in fire or submersion. Most crash fatalities result from the force of impact or from being thrown from the vehicle, not from being trapped. Ejected occupants are four times as likely to be killed as those who remain inside the vehicle.
- Buckle up every time you enter a vehicle: Seat belts should be worn at all times, even on short trips close to home. Three out of four fatal crashes occur within 25 miles of victims’ homes. Most crashes causing death or injury occur at speeds below 40 miles per hour.
Governor's Highway Safety Office, James K. Polk Building, 505 Deaderick Street, Suite 1800
Nashville, TN 37243
Office: 615.741.2589
1.800.99 BELTS
Fax: 615.253.5523
"We're going to save lives"
Governor Bill Haslam
