SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's ‘Click It or Ticket’ enforcement begins May 17 and will run through June 6th. More than 40 law enforcement agencies throughout Utah will be working 300 additional shifts to help educate Utahns about the importance of buckling up.
This new campaign begins a few weeks before the ‘deadliest days of summer’ which kicks off Memorial Day weekend.
“There is a reason we call it the deadliest days of summer,” Utah Highway Patrol Major Jeff Nigbur said.
In 2020, more than 60 unbuckled people died on Utah roads, according to UHP.
Back in 2014, Rae McCurdy and her three friends planned a trip to Iceland. The friends decided to fly out of Denver instead of Salt Lake City. After grabbing a bite to eat in Wyoming, the four were involved in a crash.
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“I swerved to miss an animal in the street, over corrected and we flipped two and a half times,” she said.
Three of the women were unbuckled, and those three suffered major injuries, McCurdy said.
“Out of the four of us, I was wearing my seatbelt and the three ladies behind me were not. Two of them got ejected and one was in the car rolling around,” she said.
Since McCurdy was wearing a seatbelt, she walked away with only a few scrapes.
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The women shared their story in hopes that others will take this as a warning, survivor Jasmine Roe said.
“You ask any one of our people and they remember where they were, what show they were watching, what they were eating, everything, every detail. It affects every single person. It's just selfish, just buckle up,” she said.
