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May 20, 2024 - Record-high traffic is expected on the roads during the 2024 Memorial Day holiday, and Louisiana law enforcement officers will be writing tickets to anyone not wearing a seat belt during the Click It or Ticket campaign.
The campaign is in effect through Sunday, June 2, said Lisa Freeman, executive director of the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission.
During Memorial Day holiday periods from 2018-2022, 52 people were killed on Louisiana roads, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This year, AAA projects that 38.4 million people in the U.S. will travel by car over the Memorial Day weekend, which would be the highest number of road travelers since AAA started tracking in 2000.
With so many vehicles on the road, it’s even more important for everyone in the car, truck, SUV, or van to be properly restrained in a seat belt or child safety seat, Freeman said.
“There are some things out of your control in a vehicle, and one of them is what the other driver is going to do,” Freeman said. “Wearing a seat belt and ensuring children are in an age- and size-appropriate child seat is the best way to protect against that other driver.”
Click It or Ticket is a national campaign that the LHSC supports through disbursement of federal funds to law enforcement agencies to provide extra personnel during the campaign. In Louisiana, a ticket for a seat belt violation is $50 for a first offense.
But the impetus behind the campaign isn’t to penalize people; the goal is to find a way to motivate some people that wearing a seat belt is in their own best interests, Freeman said.
“Louisiana’s latest seat belt survey shows less than 15% of drivers and passengers do not wear their seat belts,” Freeman said. “Yet, in cases where seat belt use is known, more than 48% of the people who died in crashes here in 2022 were not wearing a seat belt. If we can get that last 15% to wear a seat belt, we can save hundreds of lives every year.”
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