The Virginia Sheriffs’ Association wants you to be safe on the road while you’re out enjoying this long holiday weekend!
Last year, October was the deadliest month for car accidents in the state of Virginia: October 2019 saw 12,568 motor vehicle crashes, which caused 6,036 injuries and 86 fatalities. This year, the Virginia Sheriffs’ Association, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Virginia Highway Safety Office are aiming to counter this trend. Together they have launched a safety campaign called Operation Crash Reduction — running from October 9-12, over the long Indigenous People’s Day weekend — to raise awareness about highway safety and the dangers of operating a vehicle without wearing a seatbelt. Holiday weekends tend to see higher than normal numbers of people out driving, and more vehicles on the roads means more car crashes, which is why safety awareness is particularly important this weekend.
Wearing your seatbelt is the law in Virginia. Even so, too many people fail to buckle up when they are in a car. More than half of the motor vehicle fatalities in Virginia last year were of unrestrained drivers and passengers. The simple act of buckling your seatbelt provides you with the best defense against dying in a car crash — front-seat occupants of passenger cars decrease their risk of fatal injury by 45% just by buckling in! Seatbelt use not only reduces the chances that you’ll die if you get in a car crash, but also greatly reduces your risk of sustaining devastating injuries in the event of an accident. The Operation Crash Reduction campaign aims to drive that message home.
Many of us will be out and about these next few days enjoying what’s likely to be the last of the warm-weather long holiday weekends of 2020. Whether you find yourself wandering the back roads around Charlottesville or Midlothian looking for the perfect place to go apple picking, or enjoying a drive near Hopewell or Leesburg to take in the fall foliage, all of us here at Burnett & Williams encourage you to be safe and smart and wear your seatbelt!