#adecalets

The Thanksgiving holiday is the kickoff to the busiest season of the year. With all the rushing around and holiday travel, it’s a great time to remind motor vehicle drivers and passengers to buckle their seat belts. To keep drivers and their passengers safe, ADECA’s Law Enforcement and Traffic Safety Division is partnering with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to share an important lifesaving reminder: Buckle Up — Every Trip. Every Time. Review these statistics for an eye-opening look at the impact that seat belts can have on your safety.

In 2018, there were 22,697 passenger vehicle occupants (in passenger cars, pickup trucks, vans, or SUVs) killed in traffic crashes in the United States. Almost half (47%) of those who were killed were not wearing seat belts.

NHTSA estimates that seat belts saved the lives of 14,995 passenger vehicle occupants age 5 and older in 2017, according to the latest data available. If everyone had worn their seat belts on every trip that year, an additional 2,549 lives could have been saved.

The facts don’t lie: When you wear your seat belt as a front-seat occupant of a passenger car, your risk of fatal injury goes down by 45 percent. For light-truck occupants, that risk is reduced by 60 percent.

Make this Thanksgiving different from years past.

During the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in 2018, there were 291 passenger vehicle occupants killed in traffic crashes across the nation.

Nighttime is deadlier than daytime in terms of seat belt use. Over the 2018 Thanksgiving weekend, 54 percent of passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes at night were unbuckled, compared to 42 percent during the day.

Younger people continue to be overrepresented in fatal crashes and seat belt nonuse. Among the passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2018, occupants ages 21-24 and 25-34 were unrestrained at a rate of 58 percent and 60 percent, respectively.

Males are more likely than females to be unrestrained in fatal crashes. More than half (52 percent) of the male passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2018 were unrestrained, compared with 39 percent of females.

If you’re ejected from a vehicle in a crash, odds are that you will not survive. In 2018, 8 out of 10 (82 percent) of the people totally ejected from vehicles in crashes were killed. Wearing your seat belt is the most effective way to prevent ejection; only 1 percent of occupants wearing seat belts were ejected in fatal crashes, compared to 27% of those who were unrestrained.

In the last decade, seat belts have saved the lives of more than 100,000 people in the United States. Those people are thankful they wore their seat belts. Won’t you wear yours?

As many as 450 local law enforcement agencies across Alabama could soon receive additional aid to help prevent and reduce the spread of COVID-19 among officers, inmates, employees and others.

The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs plans to provide many of the state’s police departments, sheriff’s offices and other law enforcement agencies with protection kits. The kits will include protective masks and gloves, hand sanitizer, disinfectants, decontaminant foggers and pressure washers.

The kits are approximately $3 million of an allocation provided by the U.S. Department of Justice to Alabama under the Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding program.

“By virtue of their everyday exposure with the public, our police, deputies and all other law enforcement personnel face one more risk in performing their duties,” Gov. Kay Ivey said. “This equipment will provide law enforcement officers with added protection and will be particularly meaningful in smaller departments which are already straining budgets to maintain their safety.”

Equipment distribution, which is expected in late October and early November, will be done at ADECA’s Surplus Property warehouse in Montgomery over about a four-day period. Qualified law enforcement agencies are being notified of the pickup schedule through affiliated state associations.

Larger police and sheriff’s departments in the state will receive funding allocations directly from the U.S. Justice Department.

“ADECA’S Law Enforcement and Traffic Safety Division and Surplus Property Division have worked together to make this process as simple and efficient as possible,” ADECA Director Kenneth Boswell said. “We hope that the departments and agencies will find these protective kits useful in keeping officers and deputies safe while serving the public.”

ADECA also plans within the next several weeks to supply Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding to larger state law enforcement and corrections agencies.

The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs and Alabama law enforcement agencies are joining their counterparts in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee to remind motorists to follow traffic safety laws, especially posted speed limits, during their summer travels.

The third annual “Operation Southern Shield” campaign runs from July 15-21 and is a partnership of the states in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Region 4. Alabama and Georgia law enforcement agencies will team up for a media event on July 16 at 10 a.m. CST at the Phenix City Amphitheater.

“The goal of this campaign is very simple – saving lives on our roads and highways,” ADECA Director Kenneth Boswell said. “Follow the posted speed limit, drive sober and avoid distracted driving. These good driving habits keep you and others safe when traveling.”

ADECA administers grant programs that support traffic safety enforcement throughout the year, including the national “Click It or Ticket” and “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaigns. Grants administered by ADECA from NHTSA funds additional traffic safety patrols by state and local law enforcement agencies during heavy travel periods.

The July 16 media event will include speaker Mike Lutzenkirchen, father of the late Philip Lutzenkirchen, former Auburn University football player from 2009-2012. Since his son’s passing in 2014, Mike Lutzenkirchen has served as executive director of the Lutzie 43 Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to reduce the number of distracted and impaired driving accidents.

According to NHTSA, speeding has been a factor in nearly one-third of all traffic deaths in the United States over the last two decades. In 2017, speeding killed 9,717 people, which was about 26 percent of nationwide traffic fatalities that year.

In 2017, nearly 200 lost their lives in traffic crashes in Alabama relating to excessive speed.

For the second year, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs is teaming up with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as well as state and local law enforcement agencies to reduce those speed-related crashes, injuries and fatalities during a one-week special traffic safety campaign beginning Sunday.

“Operation Southern Shield,” which runs July 15-21, is an effort by law enforcement agencies in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee to curtail speeding motorists and prevent crashes. The campaign comes at a time when many motorists are traveling for vacation.

ADECA Law Enforcement and Traffic Safety Division is working with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency and police and sheriff’s departments throughout Alabama to increase efforts to take unsafe drivers off the roads. Grant funding administered by ADECA from NHTSA funds additional traffic safety patrols by law enforcement agencies during heavy travel periods.

Bill Whatley, who heads LETS’ Public Safety Unit, said patrol officers concentrate on areas within their jurisdictions where traffic crashes are more likely to occur.

“We’re focusing on speeding motorists because that is a major factor in car crashes,” Whatley said. “That by no means is an indication that other types of traffic violations are getting a free ride. We encourage motorists to always obey our traffic laws and particularly during this heavy traveling time of summer to have patience in construction zones and in congested areas.”

Law enforcement officers from Alabama and Georgia are scheduled to meet Tuesday in Phenix City to show their solidarity in reducing speed-related crashes and taking unsafe drivers off the road.

Some statistics involving speeding in 2017 traffic crashes are:

Speeding contributed to crashes in which 199 people were killed.

“Alabama ranks 5th in the number of teens killed in motor vehicle crashes every year,” says Alabama State Trooper Chuck Daniel in an ad sponsored by ADECA in partnership with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, Children’s of Alabama and the Alabama Broadcaster’s Association.

To help ensure the safety of teen drivers, Alabama passed a graduated driver license law which went into effect July 2010.

Under the law, 16- and 17-year-old drivers may not:

Have more than one non-family passenger other than the parent, guardian or supervising licensed driver at least 21 years of age.

Operate a vehicle between midnight at 6 a.m. (with some exceptions)

Drive while operating any non-essential handheld communication device.

The law was amended in 2015, and changes went into effect on Nov. 1. Some changes include requiring drivers with a learner’s permit to have 50 hours of behind-the-wheel driving practice or complete an Alabama Department of Education driver’s education course prior to being allowed to take the road skills test.