Remember Click It or Ticket Campaign Starts May 21

As the unofficial start of summer, the Memorial Day holiday weekend is a busy time for Americans. Each year, the highways fill with families in vehicles, on their way to start their summer vacations. To help keep drivers and passengers stay safe, the Texarkana Arkansas Police Department is reminding motorists to “Click It or Ticket.”

This campaign is aimed at enforcing seat belt use in order to help keep families safe. This national seat belt campaign will take place May 21, through June 3, concurrent with the busy travel season. The Texarkana Arkansas Police Department will officers during these dated throughout the city looking for drivers violating the State’s Seat Belt laws.

The Texarkana Arkansas Police Department states, “as the Memorial Day weekend approaches and the summer vacation season ramps up, we want to keep our community members safe, and make sure people are doing the one thing that can save them in a crash: buckling up.” Buckling up is such a simple task that can keep you and your family safe in the car.  But it’s more than that, buckling up is the law. Our law enforcement personnel see the consequences of not buckling up. We see the loss of life and often, it could have been prevented with the simple click of a seat belt. This simple task should be automatic for all drivers and passengers.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nearly half (48%) of the passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2016 were unrestrained. At night from 6 p.m. to 5:59 a.m., that number soared to 56 percent of those killed. In 2016, almost twice as many males were killed in crashes as compared to females, with lower belt use rates, too. Of the males killed in crashes in 2016, more than half (52%) were unrestrained. For females killed in crashes, 40 percent were not buckled up.

If you know a friend or a family member who does not buckle up when they drive, please ask them to consider changing their habits.  Help us spread this life-saving message before one more friend or family member is killed as a result of this senseless inaction. Seat belts save lives, and everyone—front seat and back, child and adult needs to remember to buckle up every trip, every time.”

For more information on the Click It or Ticket mobilization, please visit www.nhtsa.gov/ciot.

Arkansas State Law for seat Belt use:

27-37-702. Seat belt use required:

(a) Each driver and front seat passenger in any motor vehicle operated on a street or highway in this state shall wear a properly adjusted and fastened seat belt properly secured to the vehicle.

27-34-101 CHILD PASSENGER PROTECTION ACT

27-34-104. Requirements.

1. a) While operating a motor vehicle on a public road, street, or highway of this state, a driver who transports a child under fifteen (15) years of age in a passenger automobile, van, or pickup truck, other than one operated for hire, shall provide for the protection of the child by properly placing, maintaining, and securing the child in a child passenger restraint system properly secured to the vehicle and meeting applicable federal motor vehicle safety standards in effect on January 1, 1995
2. b) A child who is less than six (6) years of age and who weighs less than sixty pounds (60 lbs.) shall be restrained in a child passenger safety seat properly secured to the vehicle.

(c) If a child is at least six (6) years of age or at least sixty pounds (60 lbs.) in weight, a safety belt properly secured to the vehicle shall be sufficient to meet the requirements of this section