Klamath County Sheriff’s To Participate In Holiday Weekend Traffic Safety Enforcement
Thanksgiving Weekend whether you’re traveling across town or across the country, it’s always essential to wear your seat belt. To keep drivers and their passengers safe, the Klamath County Sheriff’s Office is partnering with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to remind drivers to Click It or Ticket. Review these statistics for an eye-opening look at the impact seat belts can have on your safety.
• Thanksgiving weekend, millions of Americans will hit the roads, eager to spend time with family and friends. It’s one of the busiest travel times of the year, and unfortunately, that means more crashes.
• NHTSA is working with local law enforcement to remind everyone through the Click It or Ticket campaign that seat belts save lives. Not only is it the law, but buckling up provides the best defense against injury or death in a crash.
• In 2017, there were 23,551 passenger vehicle occupants (in passenger cars, pickup trucks, vans, or SUVs) killed in traffic crashes in the United States. Almost half (47%) of those who were killed were not wearing seat belts.
• NHTSA estimates that seat belts saved the lives of 14,995 passenger vehicle occupants age 5 and older in 2017. If everyone had worn their seat belts on every trip that year, an additional 2,549 lives could have been saved.
• The facts don’t lie: When you wear your seat belt as a front-seat occupant of a passenger car, your risk of fatal injury goes down by 45%. For light-truck occupants, that risk is reduced by 60%. Make this Thanksgiving different from years past.
• During the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in 2017 (6 p.m. on Wednesday, November 22, to 5:59 a.m. on Monday, November 27), there were 365 passenger vehicle occupants killed in traffic crashes across the nation.
• Nighttime is deadlier than daytime in terms of seat belt use. Over the 2017 Thanksgiving weekend, 57% of passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes at night were unbuckled, compared to 40% during the day.
• Surviving your Thanksgiving drive this year — and making it to next Thanksgiving — can be as simple as buckling up. In the last decade, seat belts saved the lives of more than 100,000 people in the United States. Those people were grateful they wore their seat belts — and so were the law enforcement and emergency medical technicians who may have arrived on the scene.
Remember, this isn’t a choice — it’s the law. Always Click It or Ticket — this Thanksgiving, and every day.
Drive safely this Thanksgiving. For more information, please visit www.trafficsafetymarketing.gov/getmaterials/seat-belts/click-it-or-ticket/thanksgiving-weekend.
Grant Funds Awarded To Klamath County Sheriff’s Office
The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), in association with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA), awarded the Klamath County Sheriff’s Office grant funds for traffic safety during 2019-2020 totaling $21,500. The grants are being used to increase traffic enforcement with focused patrols for Distracted Driving, Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants (DUII), Occupant Protection (Safety Belts), Pedestrian Safety and Speed Enforcement during the below specified events.
