Colorado’s annual seat belt crackdown returns. The numbers suggest it isn’t working.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

“Their lives might have been saved if they invested three seconds in safety and buckled up.”

Col. Matthew C. Packard, chief of the Colorado State Patrol, said that Monday about the 191 Coloradans who died in crashes last year without a seat belt. CDOT’s release marked the launch of the state’s annual Click It or Ticket enforcement campaign with five years of fatality data. The numbers have not moved.

Since 2021, the unbuckled share of passenger vehicle deaths in Colorado has held between 48 percent and 52 percent each year. Through May 18 of this year, 40 unbuckled drivers and passengers have died on Colorado roads, 51 percent of all passenger vehicle fatalities. Across the full five-year period, 1,052 of 2,087 passenger vehicle deaths involved an unbelted occupant, exactly 50.4 percent, according to the table published by CDOT.

Passenger vehicle fatalities, 2021-2025. Source: CDOT.

Colorado’s seat belt use rate is 90.7 percent, per CDOT. The roughly 9 percent who don’t buckle account for roughly half of every passenger vehicle death in the state, year after year. NHTSA estimates seat belts reduce the risk of severe injury or death by up to 65 percent, a figure CDOT cited Monday. The science is not in dispute. The behavior is.

NHTSA’s 2024 fatality data identifies who the resistant population tends to be. Among young adults aged 18 to 34 killed in passenger vehicles, 59 percent were completely unrestrained, one of the highest rates of any age group. Pickup truck occupants killed in crashes that year were unbuckled at 59 percent, compared to 47 percent of passenger car occupants. More unrestrained occupants died at night than during the day, 5,364 versus 4,319, and 56 percent of those killed in nighttime crashes were not wearing seat belts.

NHTSA has identified the 18-to-34 male demographic as the core resistant population in Click It or Ticket campaigns for years. Its national campaign kickoff materials note that new advertising is “laser-focused on reaching young men.” An acknowledgment that prior efforts have not closed the gap with that group.

NHTSA’s own policy guidance notes that low fines may not convince non-users to buckle up and may signal that seat belt laws are not taken seriously. Colorado’s fine for unbuckled adults starts at $65. The same guidance acknowledges that seat belt use rates have plateaued nationally and that campaigns conducted today are unlikely to produce the gains seen in earlier studies. Beyond the fine structure, there is a deeper constraint, one confirmed by the agency writing the tickets.

The law sets the ceiling

“Here in Colorado, we have a secondary enforcement law for adult drivers and front-seat passengers,” Trooper Gabriel Moltrer of the Colorado State Patrol Public Affairs Office said in a statement to RMV. “A driver can be ticketed for violating the seatbelt law if they are stopped for another traffic violation.”

Secondary enforcement means officers cannot initiate a stop based only on the lack of seatbelt. A separate violation must come first. Then the belt citation follows. At that point, the fine is issued. The enforcement chain depends entirely on catching the driver doing something else first, and at $65, the financial deterrent for the driver who is finally caught is modest.

According to IIHS, 35 states and the District of Columbia have primary enforcement seat belt laws for adults. Colorado is not among them. In 2024, observed front-seat belt use was 3 percentage points higher in primary enforcement states than in secondary enforcement states, 92 percent versus 89 percent, based on NHTSA survey data as reported by IIHS.

Colorado did move on this, partially. A law took effect January 1, 2025, raising the age covered by primary enforcement from 16 to 18. Under that change, an officer who observes an unrestrained minor in a vehicle can initiate a stop on that basis alone. No other violation required. Adult drivers, however, remain under secondary enforcement only. The stop still requires a separate triggering violation before a belt citation can be written.

It is not a new idea. A 2018 Colorado Senate bill proposed repealing the secondary enforcement limitation and allowing officers to stop drivers solely for not wearing a seat belt. It did not pass. No comparable legislation has been enacted since.

CDOT’s own April safety newsletter highlighted an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety calculator, developed using IIHS statistical models based on published research, showing how specific changes to state belt laws would affect use rates and fatality counts. The tool exists because researchers and policymakers recognize that campaigns plateau. The plateau is determined by statute.

What the numbers don’t say

The April enforcement period, the run-up before the May campaign, produced 770 seat belt citations across the Colorado State Patrol and 48 local agencies, plus 27 citations for improperly restrained children, according to CDOT. Of those, 242 came from three agencies. Larimer County Sheriff’s Office led with 118, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office added 70 and Thornton Police Department contributed 54.

Sgt. Sam Roth oversees traffic safety for Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. The crashes his unit responds to tell their own story.  He says unrestrained drivers and passengers “oftentimes see very serious injuries and deaths.” Unrestrained children concern him most. “We would like to see continued education and messaging surrounding the necessity of buckling up and properly wearing seat belts,” Roth said. “We hope our enforcement efforts are changing behavior and always encourage the use of seatbelts.”

The CDOT release does not break down citation data by time of day, road type or vehicle class. Those are the variables NHTSA’s own research identifies as most predictive of unbuckled fatality risk: nighttime, rural roads, pickup trucks. Whether enforcement is concentrated during those windows and on those vehicle types is not addressed in the public data.

A law, a number and the people behind it

The people who died without a belt last year were someone’s child, parent, neighbor. They were driving at night, or in a pickup, or on a rural road. The profiles NHTSA has identified as hardest to reach for years. The May campaign running through May 31 is designed to reach them. Two policy levers appear consistently in the research: primary enforcement for all adult occupants and higher fines. Neither is current Colorado law. Neither advanced this session.

Last year, 191 Coloradans died without a seat belt. They made up roughly half of every passenger vehicle fatality in the state. The same share as the year before, and the year before that.