PA Seatbelt Fine Attempting to Save Lives

June 2005

“You will get caught. We will fine you,” sternly warns each of the 207 state-wide billboards featuring a PA State Police Trooper. If you don’t like wearing your seatbelt, steer clear of Pennsylvania roadways.

In Pennsylvania, getting caught without wearing a seatbelt results in a $25 fine as a secondary offense. This means, if you get pulled over for something else and aren’t wearing a seatbelt, the police can issue a second ticket.

So far, PennDOT’s vigilance has been justified. Figures released from the Pennsylvania State Police from this year’s Memorial Day holiday weekend show that during the four-day holiday 11 people were killed in auto accidents on the state’s highways. Eight of the people who died weren’t wearing seat belts.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) is spending more than $186,000 to promote the National Transportation Safety Administration’s (NTSA) “Click it or Ticket” seat belt awareness program. PennDOT claims their campaign to target drivers who don’t wear their seatbelts is working. In the two years of the “Click it or Ticket” campaign, the percentage of drivers in Pennsylvania who wear their seat belts has risen from the 70 percent range to 81.3 percent.

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