GOHS and Law Enforcement Agencies Launch Holiday Click It or Ticket Campaign

Beginning this weekend, people will be heading out on the roads to make their way to family and loved ones for Thanksgiving, and State officials are asking people to buckle up.

This Thanksgiving, law enforcement agencies statewide are teaming up for the Click It or Ticket seatbelt campaign with the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety to make sure all motorists are buckled up no matter where they’re headed this holiday season.

The Thanksgiving travel period has always been one of the busiest times on Georgia roads and because of that, GOHS uses it to remind motorists to buckle up not just for the holiday, but 24/7/365.

Because holiday fatalities and unbelted crashes continue to occur at unacceptable rates, GOHS makes Click It Or Ticket a Thanksgiving tradition as much as turkey and stuffing.

This year, the enforcement campaign runs November 14 to 27.

While fatalities during the Thanksgiving travel period Wednesday thru Sunday were down in Georgia last year, collisions and injuries both increased.

And it’s not just a problem in Georgia, where we have one of the highest seatbelt rates in the country.

Office of Highway Safety Director Harris Blackwood tells WLHR News almost half of the people who died in traffic crashes last Thanksgiving were not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash,” said Harris Blackwood, GOHS Director.

During the 2014 Thanksgiving travel period (6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 26, to 5:59 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 1), 341 passenger vehicle occupants were killed in traffic crashes nationwide. Sadly, fifty percent of those killed were NOT wearing seat belts.