NHP: Click It or Ticket campaign to be enforced on local roads

Seat belts saved an estimated 11,949 lives nationwide in 2011 yet many people still aren't heeding the warnings and buckling up. The Nevada Highway Patrol has launched a multi-county "Click it or Ticket" campaign to educate drivers on the importance of using seat belts.

In Nevada, between 2007 and 2011, 441 unbelted vehicle occupants lost their lives and 1,197 were seriously injured in traffic crashes on our roadways

Between Nov. 13 and Dec. 2, law enforcement officers will fan out across Nevada in search of motorists who are not buckled up. Although seat belt use is not a primary offense in Nevada, seat belts are proven to be a primary factor in decreasing fatalities in a crash.

Officers are well trained and experienced in detecting drivers who try to “fake it” or slyly slip on their seat belts upon being pulled over.

Their message, don’t fake it, buckle up day and night. Nevada statistics show that between 2007 and 2011, nearly a third (64 percent) of fatalities and serious injury crashes involving unbelted occupants occurred at night.

Nationwide, if vehicle occupants ages 5 and older wore their seat belts, some 3,031 lives could have been saved in 2012. That is nearly twice the lives lost on the Titanic.