Maryland Police to Step Up Seatbelt Enforcement

As Memorial Day approaches, be sure to wear your seatbelt.

The Maryland Transportation Authority will be saturating the roads, checking specifically to see if people are properly buckled in, as part of a national "Click It or Ticket" campaign.

Increased seatbelt enforcement on Maryland highways, bridges and tunnels is scheduled for Monday, May 23, to Sunday, June 5, transportation officials say.

Buckling up is "the single most important thing you can do to keep yourself and your loved ones safe in a crash," according to Maryland Transportation Authority Police Chief Col. Jerry Jones.

Nearly half of fatal crashes involve someone not wearing a seatbelt, officials say.

Men are less likely than women to buckle up, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports; approximately 53 percent of men killed in crashes were not wearing their seatbelts, compared with 40 percent of women.

Recently, a Maryland woman who was not wearing her seatbelt died following a rollover crash on MD 100 in Howard County.

However, the trend is for more and more Marylanders to buckle up; statewide, seatbelt use was 92.9 percent in 2015, an increase of 0.8 percent over the previous year, transportation officials report.

Photo Credit: Morguefile.