By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor
The annual Click it or Ticket campaign kicked off Thursday at the AAA/Bob Summerel Tire and Service location on Red Bank Road in Cincinnati.
The event included more than 50 law enforcement officers from throughout the region, who showed up to show support for the campaign.
Kentucky Office of Highway Safety Director Bill Bell recounts a story of how failure to wear a seat belt resulted in a serious injury to a family member (photos by Mark Hansel).
Millions of Americans are expected to hit the road for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend and seatbelts are the most effective safety feature in vehicles.
During the Click it or Ticket campaign, which extends from May 23 to June 5, law enforcement will be out in force to drive that message home.
Cheryl Parker, AAA corporate public affairs manager, said the company projects 38 million people will journey 50 miles or more from home during the Memorial Day weekend.
“The vast majority of those people will be driving, this is up 2 percent from last year, so we know the roads will be busy,” Parker said. “Families will be sharing the road with distracted drivers, impaired drivers, drowsy drivers. You need to buckle up.”
Bill Bell, director of the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety related a personal story to demonstrate the importance of wearing a seat belt.
Bell told how in 1988, as a young man, his stepbrother fell asleep while driving after attending orientation at the University of Kentucky and wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
The car flipped several times and the young man was ejected and suffered severe spinal cord damage. After years of rehabilitation, he defied doctors’ predictions and now walks with a cane, but continues to suffer the effects of the accident from nearly 20 years ago.
“I guarantee you, to this day he will tell you, he wishes he would have worn a seat belt that day,” Bell said. “That’s why we have this law in Kentucky and that’s why we have a seat belt law in 49 states.”
Despite statistics that demonstrate the value of safety belts, nearly 20 percent of Americans still choose not to buckle up.
In 2015, there were 761 highway deaths in Kentucky and of those fatalities, 588 individuals were motor vehicle occupants, according to the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety. Of those 358, or 61 percent, were not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash.
Where Mark Simendinger works, everyone drives very fast and they always wear restraints.
Simendinger is the general manager of Kentucky Speedway in Sparta. The Speedway is helping to raise awareness of seat belt safety through a sponsorship by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet of its NACAR truck series race.
All of the promotional material for the NASCAR Camping World Buckle Up in Your Truck 225 prominently includes the Click it or Ticket message.
“The purpose of that entire (sponsorship) entitlement is to get people to wear their seatbelts,” Simendinger said. “We have been a partner with the Kentucky Department of Highway Safety for a long time and we feel like we have been a very positive influence in getting people to wear their seatbelts.”
Specialist Ron Allen with the Covington Police Department Traffic Bureau said a driver doesn’t have to be traveling at NASCAR speeds to be injured in an accident. Serious injuries can occur during accidents at low speeds in city traffic.
It can happen anywhere because you can’t have control of what’s around you,” Allen said. “Somebody is distracted by cell phones, looking at their GPS or dealing with children in the back seat; anything that takes their attention away from the roadway puts you at risk.
A lot of things you can’t have control of, but wearing your seat belt, you can and that’s the most important thing.”
For more information on the Click it or Ticket campaign, click it here .
Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytribune.com
