South Carolina Governor Honored By National Safety Council For Life-Saving Seat Belt Enforcement Campaign

     Click It or Ticket Credited with Dramatic Increases in Seat Belt Use

    WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 The National Safety Council honored
South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges today in a ceremony in Columbia, S.C., for
his outstanding leadership in a ground-breaking seat belt campaign that is
saving lives.
    The Click It or Ticket campaign was conducted over the Thanksgiving
holiday. Prior to the campaign, South Carolina's adult seat belt use was 65
percent.  Following the campaign, seat belt use jumped by 9 percentage points
to 74 percent.  African American seat belt use rose more than 14 percentage
points to more than 70 percent. Additionally, traffic fatalities during the
campaign fell by 30 percent.
    "Under Governor Hodges' leadership, South Carolina demonstrated once again
the effectiveness of high-visibility seat belt enforcement to increase seat
belt use and save lives," said Chuck Hurley, executive director of the Air Bag
& Seat Belt Safety Campaign of the National Safety Council.  "South Carolina
has given the nation a standard of excellence that emphasizes law enforcement
professionalism, planning and involvement by all segments of the community,
and superb follow-through from the state capital all the way down to the local
level."
    Click It or Ticket was a statewide effort involving all South Carolina law
enforcement agencies.  During the enforcement period from November 20 to
December 4, South Carolina declared zero tolerance for unbuckled adults and
drivers with unbuckled children.  Law enforcement conducted more than 3,000
seat belt checkpoints statewide, an average of more than four checkpoints per
county each day.  In total, officers wrote nearly 20,000 tickets for adult
seat belt infractions, more than 1,500 tickets for violations of child
restraint laws and nearly 1,000 citations for drunk driving.
    The campaign was planned and implemented with direct and early involvement
from all key segments of the community, including those most sensitive to
enforcement as a tool to increase seat belt use.  In particular, African
American leaders in law enforcement and in state government helped set the
strategy and design the training to ensure that the enforcement was conducted
professionally and fairly.
    In addition, the campaign's leaders established a toll-free number to
encourage public comment on the campaign, and provided public notification of
all checkpoint locations, so motorists knew in advance where the checkpoints
would be.  Notably, not one complaint of harassment was reported during the
campaign.
    The Click It or Ticket campaign included intense statewide TV and radio
advertising designed to alert the public in advance.  Through the advertising
and other communications, state leaders and law enforcement officials made it
clear that the goal was to get people buckled up -- not to write tickets.
    High visibility enforcement is based on a proven model to increase seat
belt use.  Years of research shows that for many people -- especially young
people -- the threat of serious injury or death isn't enough to induce belt
use.  For those drivers, it takes the real possibility of a ticket and a fine.
    South Carolina launched Click It or Ticket following a spate of high-
profile crashes that claimed the lives of numerous teenagers in the state.
    Following the successful campaign, Governor Hodges and a number of state
leaders and state legislators have called for the passage of a standard
enforcement seat belt law.  South Carolina currently has a so-called secondary
law, which allows a seat belt violation to be issued only after a stop for
another infraction, or at duly established driver's license or vehicle
registration checkpoints.  Standard enforcement enables officers to make a
stop and issue a ticket for failure to use seat belts, just as with any other
traffic infraction.
    Enactment of standard enforcement seat belt laws has proven to increase
belt use by an average of 10 to 15 percent.  For example, less than six months
after Michigan passed a primary seat belt law, restraint use jumped nearly 14
percentage points to 83.5 percent.
    "South Carolina needs a standard enforcement law to achieve the reduction
in traffic deaths it seeks," the Safety Council's Hurley said.  "With
tremendous leadership and community support, Governor Hodges and other state
officials have accomplished a great deal with a secondary law, but South
Carolinians deserve the real benefits of a standard enforcement seat belt
law."

    The National Safety Council has been working for generations to protect
lives and promote health with innovative programs.  The Council is a
nonprofit, non-governmental, international public service organization
dedicated to improving the safety, health and environmental well-being of all
people.