Decorah Police Department stepping up seat belt enforcement

The Decorah Police Department will be stepping up seat belt enforcement as part of a nationwide initiative to increase seat belt usage and save lives.

Memorial Day weekend kicks off the busy summer travel season with many more families on the roads. Iowa's seat belt usage rate of 94% is one of the highest in the nation, but the remaining 6% of vehicle occupants account for approximately half of all traffic fatalities. Wearing a seat belt is the single most effective way to survive in a crash.

The Decorah Police Department and the Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau would like to remind everyone of the following important information (2015 data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration):

• Pickup trucks will not protect you in a crash if you're not wearing a seat belt. 60% of pickup truck occupants who were killed were not buckled. That compares to 42% of passenger car occupants.

• Where you sit in the car doesn't matter. 47% of all front-seat passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes were not wearing seat belts, but 75% of those killed in back seats were unrestrained.

• Country driving is not safer. Nationwide there were 12,797 traffic fatalities on rural roads compared to 8,262 on urban streets. 50% of those killed in rural crashes were unbuckled compared to 46% in urban crashes.

• Young drivers are not invincible. Young drivers are dying at a disproportionate rate because they are not wearing seat belts -- especially young males.

Buckling up should be a habit - an automatic action -  for everyone every time they get in a vehicle. Day and night, front seat and back, Click It or Ticket!