Law enforcement agencies will be out in force over the next several weeks to provide an extra incentive to drivers and passengers who refuse to follow the law and buckle up.
May 21 marks the start of the 2018 Click It or Ticket campaign - a statewide effort to increase seat belt enforcement at the start of the summer. The program is made possible by a partnership among the Tennessee Highway Safety Office and dozens of law enforcement agencies across the state.
Local officials said their agencies participate because hundreds of lives are lost unnecessarily every year as a result of lax seatbelt usage. According to data provided on the Tennessee Highway Safety Office website, 315 people were killed in Tennessee traffic crashes in 2017, representing about 30 percent of the state's total traffic fatalities last year.
"We're looking for seatbelt violations and car seat violations. The purpose in that is to increase the usage and save lives," said Deputy Chief Charles Lowery Jr. for the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office. "We can't buckle up the seat belt for them every time they get in the car. It's got to be a conscious decision on the part of the individual."
Lowery said every demographic is guilty - first responders have seen people of all ages suffer traumatic injuries or even die in car crashes because they weren't wearing seatbelts. Information from the Tennessee Highway Safety Office shows failing to buckle up contributes to more fatalities than any other single traffic safety-related behavior.
"We just recently had one that the subject was ejected through the sunroof. Had he had a seatbelt on that would not have happened," he said. "I wish there was a magic wand that we could wave over everybody and say, 'Common sense tells you you ought to put on your seat belt,' but as my grandmother said, 'If common sense were common, everyone would have it.'"
Drivers are responsible for themselves and for all child passengers under age 18 in the car, while licensed passengers 16 or older are responsible for themselves and will be ticketed instead of the driver. If the driver and passengers aren't properly restrained, the law allows officers to stop a vehicle for that reason alone.
The Tennessee Highway Safety Office heads several campaigns in addition to Click It or Ticket to encourage safe driving practices, one of which seeks to share stories in which seatbelts made the difference in serious car crashes. Saved By the Belt spotlights people every year who might not be alive if they had been unrestrained.
Steve Dillard, East Tennessee Law Enforcement Liaison for the Tennessee Highway Safety Office, said agencies can submit examples and receive in return a certificate to celebrate the driver's good choices.
"We do this as a community event tool so the [officers] can give back to the community so that we can show that we appreciate they followed the law and wore their safety belt, but also to encourage other people with the story of how that belt saved their life," he said.
Dillard pointed to a recent incident involving a young woman who was traveling on back roads near Gatlinburg. She was rear-ended by an F-250 truck that flung her car off a bridge into a creek below.
"She was at a stop sign waiting to turn left and apparently traffic was heavily congested.
"... One minute she was changing the radio station and the next thing she knew the airbags in her Jetta went off and she was flying through the air," Dillard said. "Because she was buckled, she walked away with only a concussion and a few scrapes and bruises."
Contact staff writer Emmett Gienapp at egienapp@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6731. Follow him on Twitter @emmettgienapp.