To emphasize the importance of wearing seat belts, the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning will have its spring Click It or Ticket enforcement campaign today through June 1.

During the two-week period that includes Memorial Day weekend, the Michigan State Police, along with officers from city and county police departments across the state, will be actively conducting seat belt enforcement, according to a news release from the state OHSP.

The state in 2023 had 223 people killed while not wearing seat belts, which accounted for 39.5% of all fatalities for which seat belt use was known in Michigan, according to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

While the number of unrestrained vehicle-occupant fatalities in Michigan decreased from 232 in 2022 to 223 in 2023, the number of unrestrained crashes rose from 4,480 in 2022 to 4,579 in 2023.

“The enforcement period is about saving lives plain and simple,” Alicia Sledge, OHSP interim director, said in the news release. “Wearing a seat belt is the single most effective way to protect yourself on the road, and yet far too many people still take that risk. As warmer weather draws more people outside, we’re urging everyone, drivers and passengers alike, to buckle up every trip, every time. Wearing your seatbelt is not just the safe thing to do, it’s the law.”

Other Michigan seat belt crash statistics include:

— Of the 223 fatalities in 2023, 200 vehicle occupants were killed while not wearing seat belts in the front seat, 18 in the back seat and five in another or unknown seating position.

— A total of 285 people in crashes in 2023 were ejected while not wearing a seat belt. Of those, 179 were drivers, 102 were injured passengers, and four were uninjured passengers. Of the unbelted people who were ejected, 66 — 23.2% — were killed.

­– From 2019 to 2023, of the 1,120 occupants killed in crashes who were not wearing seat belts, 71% (795) were male and 29% (325) were female.

— In 2023, Michigan’s seat belt use rate was 92.4%, a decrease of 0.5% from the 92.9% recorded in 2022. The state’s highest seat belt use rate was 97.9% in 2009. For a chart depicting Michigan’s seat belt use rate over the past 10 years, go to the OHSP Click It or Ticket page, https://www.michigan.gov/msp/divisions/ohsp/campaign-materials/click_it_or_ticket.

Michigan s primary seat belt law allows police to stop and ticket drivers if they, front-seat passengers and/or passengers under 16 years old in any seating position are not buckled. Children must be restrained in a car seat or booster seat until they are 8 years old or 4 feet 9 inches tall, and children younger than 13 must be in the rear seat if a rear seat is available.

For more information about seat belts and Michigan’s seat belt laws, go online to www.michigan.gov/seatbelts.