MANSFIELD, Ohio — Monday marked the first day of Click It or Ticket, a two-week long campaign aimed at enforcing seat belt usage. To kick off the campaign, Lew Petit Driving School hosted Rchland Public Health Educator Public Health Reed Richmond and State Highway Patrol Post Trooper Randall Adkins.
Richmond and Adkins spoke to students of Lew Petit Driving School. The 11 students were then broken into teams to conduct a quick survey: how many individuals could they find traveling on Park Avenue who were not wearing seat belts?
“We think it’s important because the number of lives that are lost just because people weren’t wearing their seat belts,” said Richmond.
Among young adults aged 18 to 34 in fatal crashes, he explained, 61 percent of them were unrestrained. Also, from 2009 to 2013, approximately 63,000 lives were saved by seat belts, he said.
“That’s a lot of people — something as simple as putting your seat belt on,” he added.
Adkins, who has been with the Mansfield Post of the State Highway Patrol for almost four years, said giving tickets to individuals who are not wearing a seat belt is not about the money.
“A lot of people think, ‘Oh, you’re just pulling me over because the state needs more money.’ But when I issue a ticket, I hope that it changes their behavior. I want to make it safer out there,” said Adkins.
Adkins said that many fatal crashes he has encountered did not initially look fatal.
“If you’re not wearing a seat belt and the car rolls, you could be ejected, or partially [ejected], and the when the car rolls on you, you’re dead,” said Adkins. “The car might not look so bad, but you’re dead.”
Adkins predicts that the younger generation will wear seat belts. “The older generation didn’t grow up hearing they were important, some cars didn’t have seat belts. I think since they’ve heard it all their life that young people will wear their seat belts.”
“It’s the distracted driving that is going to be a problem,” he said. Whether they are texting and driving, listening to the radio or talking with passengers, Adkins sees the younger generation as distracted while driving.
And the results of the surveys?
Lew Petit School Instructor Paul Mathewson said the students calculated that approximately 60 percent of the drivers were wearing their seat belts and 40 percent were not restrained.
Of the 40 percent not wearing their seat belts, they figured the drivers were between the ages of 25 and 35, said Mathewson.
“That’s still a lot of people,” said Mathewson.
