The 21st Annual “Buckle Up New York, Click It or Ticket” enforcement campaign is underway through November 29. The statewide campaign, supported by the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee, raises awareness about the importance of wearing seat belts. Throughout the mobilization, state and local law enforcement agencies are using marked and unmarked vehicles, checkpoints, and roving details to patrol for unbelted occupants. Law enforcement is also making sure children are properly restrained. During last year’s enforcement campaign, police issued 26,432 tickets for seat belt and child restraint violations.
In August, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that strengthens the state’s seat belt laws to protect everyone on New York’s roadways. As of November 1, everyone in passenger vehicles, regardless of where they sit, needs to wear a seat belt or be properly restrained in a child safety seat. In New York, police may lawfully ticket motorists for not wearing a seat belt even if they are not committing any other traffic infractions.
Enforcement efforts like the “Buckle Up New York, Click it or Ticket” mobilization and educational campaigns are working. The state’s seat belt compliance rate has remained at or above 90 percent since 2010, reaching a record 94 percent last year, according to data from the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research at the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College.
According the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 37,133 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes nationwide in 2017 and 47 percent of those killed were not wearing seat belts. NHTSA estimates that in 2017, seat belts saved 14,955 lives and an additional 2,549 people could have been saved had they been wearing a seat belt.
