Seat Belts
For Better Odds, Always Buckle Up
The numbers don’t lie. Every day, seat belts save lives in Colorado. When you wear one, you instantly reduce your chance of injury or death by 50%. That’s why buckling up is the single most effective thing you can do to prevent harm from happening to you. Whether you’re a driver or a passenger, seat belts help keep you safe. After all, a crash can happen to anyone. In fact, there’s a 1 in 40 chance that you will be involved in a crash this year. And most passengers who died in crashes weren’t buckled up.
Not only is wearing a seat belt required by law, but they protect you against the most unforgiving laws of all — physics. From low-speed crashes to violent rollovers, wearing one protects against intense amounts of force. Wearing your seat belt protects you and those around you. Make sure everyone in your car is buckled up. Together, we can save lives and keep Colorado safe. Buckle up and shift into safe.
Educate
- Colorado’s seat belt use rate is 86.3 percent — well below the national use average of 90 percent.
- In 2021, 232 unbuckled vehicle occupants were killed on Colorado roadways, a 12% increase over 2020.
- An estimated 70 lives could be saved every year if everyone in Colorado buckled up.
- Seat belts reduce the risk of injury or death in a crash by 50 percent.
- In 2018, five of the six counties with the lowest seat belt use in Colorado were rural.
Adults — Colorado has a secondary enforcement law for adult drivers and front-seat passengers. Drivers can be ticketed for violating the seat belt law if they are stopped for another traffic violation.
Teens — Colorado’s Graduated Drivers Licensing (GDL) law requires all drivers under 18 and their passengers, regardless of their age, to wear seat belts. GDL is a primary enforcement, meaning teens can be pulled over solely for not wearing a seat belt or having passengers without seat belts.
Children — Colorado’s Child Passenger Safety law is a primary enforcement, meaning the driver can be stopped and ticketed if an officer sees an unrestrained or improperly restrained child under age 16 in the vehicle.
