It appears that the Iowa’s "click it or ticket" campaign is working. Iowa Department of Public Safety spokesperson Jim Saunders says more Iowa motorists are wearing a seat belt than every before. He says, "One of the last surveys showed that Iowa was running about 90 percent compliance in seatbelt usage and that’s good."
Accident investigators are reporting that seat belts are saving lives. Saunders says, "Just to give you an example, we’ve seen a significant downtrend in the number of fatalities that we’ve had and I think a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that we have a high compliance rate with seat belts." Saunders says the fact that nine out of 10 Iowans are buckling up is paying off.
"We’re down 11 fatalities this year from the same time period last year," Saunders says, "so we want to keep seeing those numbers reduced as time goes on and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we do put a lot of emphasis on the use of seat belts." Saunders says if you don’t buckle up, you’ll have to pay up. The cost of a seat belt ticket is around $88.