COLORADO — The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) reports that the first Click It or Ticket enforcement period of 2024 began Monday.
The Colorado State Patrol (CSP) alongside 36 local law enforcement agencies are promoting driving safety by starting the first seat belt enforcement period of 2024.
The enforcement window will begin Monday, Apr. 1, and last until Apr. 14.
The campaign is a nationally visible campaign that encourages people to wear their seat belts and avoid the dire consequences of skipping that integral step. To help drill the point home, law enforcement will be increasing their patrols and focus on issuing citations to those not wearing their seat belts.
“We can’t stress this enough: wearing a seat belt dramatically improves the chances that you will survive a car crash,” said Matthew C. Packard, chief of the CSP. “In 2023, 81% of occupants who survived fatal crashes in Colorado were wearing a seat belt. By comparison, only 19% of the unbuckled occupants survived.”
Colorado has been seeing an increase in seat belt wearers, as they have had a 2% increase in people wearing seat belts since 2022. This number brings the total number of seat belt wearers to 88% in Colorado according to CDOT, this is the highest percentage of people wearing a seat belt in the previous 10 years.
An increase in seat belt clicks has also seen a decrease in the number of deaths from unbuckled accidents, with 223 unbuckled deaths last year, an 8% decrease from 2022.
Wearing a seat belt reduces the risk of death and serious injury by 65%.
“It’s encouraging to see these positive trends across our state,” said CDOT’s Office of Transportation Safety Director Darrell Lingk. “Wearing a seat belt is truly one of the easiest things you can do to protect yourself. You can’t always control what happens on the road, but you can control your odds of being seriously injured or killed in a crash by wearing a seat belt.”
Colorado’s seat belt laws
Colorado law requires the driver and every front seat passenger of a motor vehicle and the driver and every passenger in an autocycle equipped with a safety belt system to wear a seat belt whenever the vehicle is in operation on a street or highway.
- Adults — Colorado has a secondary enforcement law for adult drivers and front-seat passengers. Drivers can be ticketed for violating the seat belt law if they are stopped for another traffic violation.
- Teens — Colorado’s Graduated Drivers Licensing (GDL) law requires all drivers under 18 and their passengers, regardless of their ages, to wear seat belts. This is a primary enforcement, meaning teens can be pulled over simply for not wearing a seat belt or having passengers without seat belts.
- Children — Colorado's Child Passenger Safety law is a primary enforcement, meaning the driver can be stopped and ticketed if an officer sees an unrestrained or improperly restrained child under age 16 in the vehicle.
Fines for not buckling up in Colorado start at $65, and parents or caregivers caught with an improperly restrained child can receive a minimum fine of $82.
Vehicle collisions are a leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 13. Last year, out of more than 5,000 car seat checks performed in Colorado, there was a 66% misuse rate. Parents and caregivers can learn more about Colorado child passenger safety laws, recommendations and recalls at CarSeatsColorado.com.
____
____
Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5, download and start watching.
