I. INTRODUCTION

Safety belts can reduce death and serious injury of front seat occupants in traffic crashes by nearly 50 percent. Yet of the 42,815 people killed in traffic crashes in 2002, an estimated 60 percent were not wearing a safety belt. According to NHTSA, safety belts are the most effective safety device in vehicles and would save thousands more lives annually if everyone buckled up.

Selective Traffic Enforcement Programs (sTEPs) are a proven method to change motorists' behavior and do it quickly. Occupant protection sTEPs can raise safety belt use rates more substantially and more quickly than any other currently available program as they create a perception among motorists that they will be ticketed if they do not buckle up.

sTEP programs typically span a several weeks with the first and second weeks focused on publicity and the remaining weeks concentrated on publicity combined with intense and highly visible enforcement.

Canada was the first country in North America to demonstrate that highly publicized occupant protection enforcement increases compliance with occupant protection laws. In the mid-1970s, mandatory safety belt laws were passed in the Canadian provinces. Within months, the safety belt use rate surged to as high as 71 percent. However, shortly thereafter, the use rate declined. Years later, occupant protection sTEPs used in several provinces led to sharp increases in safety belt use (Jonah et al., 1982; see also Williams et al., 2000). Continued use of sTEPs contributed to Canada's achievement of an 87 percent use rate by the 1990s.

New York State experienced a similar rise and fall in its safety belt use rate following passage of the first statewide safety belt law in the U.S. in 1984. In 1985, the community of Elmira in Chemung County, NY conducted a three-week publicity and enforcement program based on the Canadian sTEP model. The Elmira sTEP effort, the first in the U.S., successfully reversed a falling safety belt use rate. The use rate improved from 49 percent to 77 percent in just three weeks time (Williams et al., 1987).

North Carolina enacted a safety belt law in 1986. Shortly thereafter, police officers began issuing tickets and safety belt use rose to 78 percent, higher than anywhere else in the country. By the middle of 1993, the rate had dropped to 65 percent. North Carolina decided to embark on a long-term program to increase its safety belt use rate in 1994. The program was named “Click It or Ticket” (CIOT) and it was the first statewide occupant protection sTEP attempted in the U.S.

North Carolina began by using a sTEP model resembling the Canadian and Elmira programs. High levels of safety belt and child restraint use were achieved using stepped up enforcement, increased publicity and widespread public information and education focusing on enforcement. By July 1994, sTEPs in North Carolina had achieved an 81 percent driver safety belt use rate (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 1994).

Between 1995 and 1997, NHTSA funded statewide occupant protection sTEPs in over two-dozen states under the auspices of the Campaign Safe and Sober program. These states conducted an average of four sTEP waves for each year of funding. Most of these programs garnered widespread law enforcement support. But unlike CIOT in North Carolina, none of these programs extensively used paid media. Instead, these states relied heavily on earned media and public service announcements to get their message to the public. Furthermore, program publicity was not always focused on stepped up enforcement, but rather on health and safety themes. All of these sTEP states experienced measurable increases in belt use over time, though the wave-to-wave increases were usually small (Solomon et al., 1999).

In November 2000, South Carolina adopted the CIOT program. This sTEP program included both an earned and paid media effort supported by a grant ($500,000) from the Air Bag and Safety Belt Safety Campaign. Both the paid and earned media efforts focused exclusively on occupant restraint enforcement. During a two-week enforcement period, the South Carolina Highway Patrol, in association with local law enforcement, conducted 3,303 checkpoints and wrote 19,815 belt use citations. By the end of the two-week enforcement period, 80 percent of motorists surveyed at DMV offices reported knowing of Click It or Ticket; 82 percent heard about checkpoints; and 40 percent had actually gone through a checkpoint. Observed front seat occupant belt use increased by 14 percentage points, from 65 percent before enforcement to 79 percent during the second enforcement week (Solomon and Preusser, in process).

Shortly after South Carolina's successful CIOT campaign, a partnership among NHTSA Region IV officials, the Air Bag and Safety Belt Safety Campaign and state highway safety officials was formed to conduct a Click It or Ticket program across the southeast. All eight states in the region, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee participated. The May 2001 program was structured so that all of the states simultaneously undertook a five-week earned media campaign, a two week paid media campaign beginning one week after the start of earned media, and a two week intensive enforcement effort beginning one week after the start of paid media. Locally conducted, pre, during and post observations of belt use and surveying of awareness of the program were also carried out. Some 3,250 law enforcement agencies participated in the program, conducting over 25,000 checkpoints or patrols during the two-week enforcement period. Enforcement resulted in 119,805 safety belt citations, 9,495 child restraint citations, 8,478 DUI arrests, recovery of 254 stolen cars and apprehension of 1,471 fugitives. Results of surveys conducted in driver licensing offices throughout the eight states showed a dramatic increase in awareness of recent safety belt messages on television and radio, as well as in the print media. Observations of safety belt use showed statewide increases of between four and twenty percentage points across the states (Solomon, 2002).

Evaluation of the southeast region-wide program provided evidence that the full implementation of the Click It or Ticket model, specifically the use of paid media, can contribute to an improved belt use rate. The study states, though, were all within one geographical region. To evaluate more widespread application of the CIOT model and to measure its effectiveness, a wider geographical range of states would be needed.

The availability of federal grants for safety belt enforcement under the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) has made periodic safety belt enforcement sTEPs commonplace in the U.S. TEA-21 funds have only recently been directed towards funding paid advertisement campaigns, telling motorists to put on a safety belt or else be ticketed. During spring 2002, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approached at least one state in each of its ten Regions, looking for highway safety offices willing to organize and implement a CIOT or similar program in May 2002. States would be asked to:

The results of the May 2002 CIOT program evaluation confirmed that intensive short term and well publicized enforcement can produce large gains in safety belt use. The results also suggested that enforcement with only modest paid media and intensive enforcement with no paid media has some effect on the belt use rate, but not to the same extent as fully implementing of advertisements with enforcement (Solomon 2002).

Nearly every state currently uses occupant protection sTEPs to improve the safety belt use rate. Most states conduct at least two sTEP waves per year and most schedule wave activities to occur simultaneously with National Mobilizations. Mobilizations typically occur in May and November and are associated with substantial national and local belt use publicity. NHTSA and the Air Bag & Safety Belt Safety Campaign of the National Safety Council in conjunction with thousands of state and local law enforcement agencies conduct these mobilizations. Because a large number of states currently use the Click It or Ticket slogan (35), National Mobilizations are also referred to as Click It or Ticket campaigns.

The Federal Government dedicated an unprecedented level of funding through a special appropriation for the May 2003 Mobilization (approximately $25 million) for the purchase of paid advertisements. The U.S. Department of Transportation allocated $8 million for the purchase of national advertisement on television and radio broadcasts focused on 18-34 year old males, a population at risk for motor vehicle crashes and low bet use. Additionally, 45 State Highway Safety Offices targeted nearly $16 million of Section 157 grant funding for advertisements during local programming. Both national and state advertisements carried a strong enforcement message and targeted teens and young adults with the message Click It or Ticket, or something similar.

This report presents results from an evaluation of the May 2003 National Mobilization. In particular, this report summarizes activities and outcomes reported to NHTSA by individual states. States’ information reported to NHTSA included both process and outcome information. Wherever possible, the information reported by NHTSA was verified by individual states to help ensure that the results presented in this document were as up to date as possible.