With road deaths in Nebraska careening upward, the man in charge of highway safety in the state wants to tighten Nebraska’s seat belt law.

Bill Kovarik, who heads up the Nebraska Department of Highway Safety, telling News Channel Nebraska that changing the seat belt law is a “very needed task.”

{View our full video report above and check back for a complete transcript]

TRANSCRIPT:

As we reported earlier road deaths in Nebraska had been declining:

249 in 2019.

233 in 2020.

220 last year.

But so far for 2022, just through November, 240.

Why the increase?

One likely answer drivers and front-seat passengers not wearing seatbelts.

During the last two years, preliminary numbers find nearly 70 percent of those killed in Nebraska crashes were not wearing seatbelts (Source: Ne Highway Safety Office). 

 State Sen. Bob Hilkemann (2021): “We have more than enough evidence that shows people are safer in a seatbelt.”

 Currently Nebraska ranks the fifth worst state in the nation when it comes to wearing seatbelts.

Right now, 81 per cent of drivers and front-seat passengers buckle up but a new state survey expects that number to drop significantly, down to 76 per cent.

Nebraska’s Highway Safety guru, Bill Kovarik, tells NCN he has two main theories behind the growing non-use of seat belts.

First: “Drivers reacting to the pandemic with a rebellious attitude.” Secondly: “NE has had a secondary seat belt law so long drivers do not believe it will be enforced.”

That secondary law boils down to this: you can’t be ticketed for not wearing a seat belt unless, unless you are ticketed for something else first.

Just the way former Gov. Pete Ricketts liked it, first telling me “I think the law we have on the books right now is appropriate.”

Gov. Jim Pillen has refused to comment.

In the meantime, State Sen. Hilkemann has left the Legislature, leaving all this in limbo as the new Legislature gets in gear.

Kovarik telling NCN that so far, he’s, “Not aware of anyone proposing a primary seat belt law” and is hoping “to get a Senator to take on this very needed task.”.