Click it or Ticket is a high visibility enforcement program designed to raise safety belt usage and save people from death or serious injury on roadways. Virginia's statewide safety belt compliance rate is 81.7%.
The campaign consists of awareness through strong educational messages mostly on television and radio stations in local areas in addition to strict enforcement. Consistently, surveys are completed to determine the current safety belt usage rate.
Facts
Airbags do not replace the need for seat belts. When used with seat belts, airbags further reduce the risk of death or injury in the event of a crash.
Nationwide in 2020, unrestrained vehicle occupant fatalities increased by 14% compared to 2019.
In Virginia, 3,854 people were injured in crashes due to being unrestrained in 2020.
Traffic crash data in Virginia from 2021 indicates that there as a total of 968 fatalities, of those, 334 were not belted at the time of the crash.
Studies have sown that when a driver is buckled with a seat belt, children are likely to be buckled 95% of the time. When a driver is not buckled in a seat belt, children are likely to be buckled only 77% of the time.