The following press release was issued by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office is joining the Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety to remind drivers and passengers before the start of the Thanksgiving holiday travel period to not risk a ticket by always remembering it to click it with their seat belt.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office is joining sheriff’s offices, police departments and the Georgia State Patrol to enforce seat belt, speeding, DUI, distracted driving and all traffic laws during the extended holiday weekend with the goal of reducing traffic crashes, deaths and injuries.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that seat belts saved almost 15,000 lives in the United States last year and another 2,500 lives could have been saved had those who were killed as the result of a traffic crash been wearing a seat belt.  Research shows that persons who are riding in the front seat and wearing a seat belt reduce their risk of a fatal injury in a traffic crash by 45 percent and those who buckle up in a light truck reduce their risk of a fatal injury in the event of a crash by 60 percent.

While Georgia’s observed daytime seat belt use rate is among the highest at the country at over 95 percent, more than half the people killed in passenger vehicle crashes in the state last year were not buckled up according to preliminary data from the Georgia Department of Transportation.  “No one wants to be in a wreck, but wearing a seat belt does give you the best chance of surviving a traffic crash because vehicle safety systems are designed with all occupants being buckled,” Governor’s Office of Highway Safety Director Allen Poole said.  “With the increase in speeding we have seen on our roads during the pandemic this year, it is important to make sure that everyone in your vehicle, especially children, are properly buckled.”