Information provided by Washington State Patrol District-1 Spokesperson Trooper Guy Gill.
It has been over ten years since driving/riding in a vehicle without wearing a seatbelt became a primary traffic offense in Washington State. In that time period, seatbelt compliance in our state has risen to over 97 percent.
We have been able to reach that number by enforcement programs like “Click it or Ticket”, public information, education, and a lot of hard work by the men and women in law enforcement. With that being said, law enforcement across our state still sees to many preventable, non-belted fatality collisions, which is why we are not letting up on when it comes to seatbelt enforcement.
Year to date, troopers in District 1 (Thurston and Pierce Counties) have stopped over 8,900 drivers for not wearing a seatbelt and have issued over 7,800 tickets. The reason for this is that seatbelts save lives! We are going to continue working hard to ensure seatbelt compliance both day and night is as high as possible. If you get stopped for not wearing a seatbelt, you will likely receive a traffic infraction for $124.
We do all of this with one goal in mind, we want to reduce serious injury and fatality collisions. You can never predict when a collision might happen, but you can reduce the risk of being injured or killed by simply wearing your seatbelt.
For more information, follow Trooper Guy Gill on Twitter.
