Buckling Up Behind the Wheel - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Buckling Up Behind the Wheel

Do you buckle up when you're driving?

The North Dakota Highway Patrol and Department of Transportation are making a push to get you to answer "yes" to that question.

The "Click It Or Ticket" program is designed to encourage drivers and passengers to wear seat belts.

For the Highway Patrol, it's a matter of saving lives.

Patrol Trooper Mike Roark took us for a ride today as he participated in a one-day seat belt enforcement campaign.

He says he has seen how seat belts can save lives.

And he says it's critical for everyone in the car to be buckled up.

Mike Roark, ND Highway Patrol Trooper) "What makes that difficult in a vehicle where say a driver is wearing his seat belt but a passenger is not, in this one particular instance, the passenger became a moving object in that vehicle and subsequently killed the driver. Had that passenger been wearing a seat belt, like the driver, they both would have survived."

Trooper Roark says statistics are clear - more than 50% of fatalities in traffic accidents are people who are not wearing seat belts and many people would be alive today had they buckled up while in their cars.