Click It or Ticket
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Click It or Ticket is a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration mobilization campaign aimed at increasing the use of seat belts among young people in the United States. The campaign relies heavily on targeted advertising aimed at teens and young adults.
The Click It or Ticket campaign has existed on the state level for many years. In 1993, governor Jim Hunt launched the campaign in North Carolina in conjunction with a "Primary safety belt law", which allows law enforcement officers issue a safety belt citation without observing another offence. Since then, other states have adopted the campaign. In May 2002, the ten states with the most comprehensive campaigns saw an increase of 8.6 percentage points from 68.5 to 77.1 percent in safety belt usage over a four-week period. Recently, Congress approved $30 million in television and radio advertising at both the national and state levels. [citation needed]
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[edit] History
Before 1980, usage of seat belts in the United States lingered around 11 percent despite volunteer and educational campaigns at the local, county, and state levels. Between 1980 and 1984, individual organizations, public education programs, incentives and policy changes strove to increase the use of seat belts. However, these efforts failed to significantly affect usage in large, metropolitan areas, and in by the end of the effort, national seat belt usage had reached only 15 percent.[1]
In 1984, New York became the first state to enact a mandatory seat belt use law, and by 1990 37 other states had followed suit. The vast majority of these laws were "secondary safety belt laws", meaning that an officer had to observe another traffic violation before issuing a citation for a seat belt infraction. Despite this, the national usage rate climbed from 15 to 50 percent.[2]
[edit] Campaign methods
The national television ad [airing] on several major networks features people driving in several regions of the country without their safety belts on. In all cases, they receive a ticket and then buckle up. The ads [appear] primarily in programs that deliver large audiences of teens and young adults—especially men. The programs include Fear Factor, WWE Smackdown, Major League Baseball, NBA Conference Finals, NASCAR Live, and the Indy 500. [3]
However, the campaign is also stressing strict enforcement of safety belt laws. In particular, the "Primary safety belt laws", which allow law enforcement officers issue a safety belt citation without observing another offence, are stressed. Nineteen states have primary safety belt laws, and on average 88 percent of people in these states use safety belts as opposed to 79 percent nationally. [citation needed] New Hampshire, the state with the lowest safety belt usage[citation needed], has no adult safety belt law. Massachusetts, the state with the second lowest usage, has only a secondary safety belt law, which requires officers to observe another driving offense before issuing a safety belt citation. Enforcement of safety belt laws of both types is to be made possible by checkpoints and saturation patrols that will detect violations of safety belt and child passenger safety laws.
[edit] Success of Click It or Ticket
The campaign has met with success so far. A survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies found that 83 percent of 800 United States citizens surveyed had seen, read, or heard about the Click It or Ticket campaign. Additionally, 81 percent of the public supports the effort. [citation needed]
Figures released by the U.S. Department of Transportation after amplifying the advertising and enforcement campaign in May 2003 indicated that "National belt use among young men and women ages 16-24 moved from 65 percent to 72 percent, and 73 percent to 80 percent, respectively, while belt use in the overall population increased from 75 percent to 79 percent." [4]
[edit] Opposition to Click It or Ticket
Opposition to the effort is based on a fear that requiring one to wear a seatbelt against their will is a violation of civil rights. For example, Dr. Walter E. Williams of George Mason University writes, "The point is whether government has a right to coerce us into taking care of ourselves. If eating what we wish is our business and not that of government, then why should we accept government's coercing us to wear seat belts?" [5] Additional objections settle specifically around the assertion that a seatbelt is a medical device, and because one is entitled to make their own medical decisions they should also be permitted to make their own decisions about wearing a seatbelt. [6]
No less than two internet-based groups have been founded to advocate this line of thinking. Stick It to Click It or Ticket operates a website and discussion forum, as does The Coalition for Seatbelt Choice. Both groups provide various levels of assistance to citation recipients by encouraging them to take their tickets to court. The groups also have sponsored letter-writing campaigns to the editors of newspapers against compulsory seatbelt statutes.
