Law Enforcement Can Make a Difference

• Occupant Protection Selective Traffic Enforcement Programs (sTEPs) are periods of highly visible safety belt enforcement campaigns combined with extensive media support. These programs are a proven method to change motorists’ safety belt use behavior quickly. Successful Occupant Protection sTEPs have been documented in Canada, Europe, and the United States.^{32, 33, 34, 35}
  
• While sTEPs are a successful method to increase safety belt use, rural America faces challenges in implemsenting this approach, especially rural States with secondary safety belt laws. Limited resources, inadequate man power, and lack of community support for strong enforcement leads to decreased participation by rural communities in coordinated national, State, and local safety belt enforcement campaigns.
  
• Enforcement alone has its limitations for increasing safety belt use. However, enforcement of safety belt laws, combined with intensive media support, is effective in increasing safety belt use because the perceived risk of receiving a safety belt citation is increased. Research shows that people will buckle up if they believe the police are enforcing the law.

Partnering to Reach Rural Areas

• When implementing safety belt campaigns in rural areas, it is important to tie into existing infrastructures serving rural areas, especially those at the community level. Examples of organizations include, but are not limited to, 4-H, The National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety, Farm Safety 4 Just Kids, the National Rural Health Association, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Indian Health Service (IHS), and the Office of Rural Health Policy (Department of Health and Human Services). Local businesses, and media and civic organizations are also valuable sources for additional support.
  
• Messaging emphasis should be based on community norms and acceptance, and on what the high-risk group (i.e. pickup truck occupants due to the low safety belt use observed among these occupants) will likely respond to. Examples of such initiatives include:
  
  • Buckle Up Santa Rosa by Think First of Northwest Florida and Pick Up the Buckle, by Avera Rural Health Institute in Sioux Falls, South Dakota – both NHTSA rural pickup truck safety belt demonstration projects;
    
  • Kids Aren’t Cargo – a NHTSA national campaign initiated by a concerned mother after several crashes involving children in the back of pickups occurred in and around her community; and
    
  • Buckle Up or Eat Glass – an education program developed by Farm Safety 4 Just Kids that targets rural teen pickup truck drivers.