MARSHALL COUNTY —Marshall County Sheriff’s Department and Plymouth Police Department join law enforcement agencies across the nation in May to increase enforcement of seat belt laws for Click It or Ticket. Multiple weeks of highly visible patrols will be watching for unrestrained passengers in cars and trucks, both children and adults in the front seat and back, both day and night.

Click It or Ticket continues through the Memorial Day holiday and the start of the summer travel season. Overtime police patrols are paid with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration funds administered by the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.

Indiana law requires the driver and all passengers to buckle up. Children under age 8 must be properly restrained in a child car seat or booster seat.

Don’t Be A Statistic

The share of Hoosiers not buckling up has dropped to 6.6 percent, below the national average of 10.4 percent. But new data from ICJI and the Indiana University Public Policy Institute show unrestrained motorists still make up 53 percent of traffic deaths.

Unrestrained motorists are more likely to die in crashes by 10 times in cars and SUVs, 14 times in pickup trucks and 15 times in vans.

Drivers under age 24, especially young male drivers, are the least likely to be buckled up during a crash. Injury rates among unrestrained motorists are also higher in rural counties when a driver is speeding or impaired and weekend nights between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m.

More seat-belt statistics are in the first of several 2018 crash fact sheets at www.in.gov/cji/files/Seat_Belt_Fact_Sheet2018.pdf.