By Abigail Roberts
The average for seat belt usage is 89 percent in Kentucky and about 85 percent for Lincoln County. That’s a percentage that local and state law enforcement are hoping to increase.
The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) is teaming up with the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety (KOHS) and Kentucky State Police (KSP) to launch a project aimed at saving Lincoln County lives.
The High Five Rural Traffic Safety project is a new Kentucky initiative aimed at improving seat belt usage in rural areas.
Ryan Fisher, executive director for KOHS, said the program has proven to be effective across the Commonwealth through its pilot project that began in 2023.
“In Lincoln County, the goal of the High Five program is to implement a 12-month, rural high-five seat belt program to increase seat belt usage and prevent serious injury crashes and fatal crashes on Lincoln county roadways,” Fisher said.
Fisher said this is done with a systematic, multi-disciplinary approach using the three E’s: enforcement, education and engineering.
The program provides $10,000 each to LCSO and KSP to work together on this initiative.
Lincoln County Sheriff Shawn Hines said if you’re not in law enforcement to save lives, you’re in the wrong business. That’s why when he became sheriff, this was an initiative he wanted to bring to Lincoln County.
“A lot of sheriffs just will not do any kind of traffic enforcement, and I’m totally opposite on that – if we can get the word out, get the enforcement out, like I said, preserve or save lives, we’re going to do it,” he said Wednesday during a press conference.
Hines complimented Chief Deputy Michael Mullins for his work on securing the grant.
Hines said there are 619 road miles in Lincoln County: 375 miles are county roads and 244 are state-maintained roads.
“So we have a large area here in Lincoln County. Over the last three years since I’ve been sheriff, we’ve had 19 fatalities,” he said. “Historically, we’ve always had about a 6 to 9 fatality rate in Lincoln County. So any of our efforts, and all of our efforts, is to try to bring that number down.”
Lincoln County Sheriff’s Shawn Hines speaks about a new project aimed at saving lives by increasing seat belt usage.
Hines said seat belt usage when he graduated high school was at about 40 percent.
“The last that I saw, Lincoln County is at 85 percent…we have come a long way since 1992 when I graduated high school, but we’re still not where we need to be,” he said. “Hopefully through this grant, we’ll be able to raise seat belt usage in Lincoln County…”
Hines said they will also be watching high-fatality areas and KOHS will help to see if there are any ways to improve safety in those areas.
Lincoln County Judge-Executive Woods Adams III said he is grateful for the state’s help to launch the project and he believes education is key to the success of the program.
“Hopefully we can close the gap even further,” Adams said.
Kim Elliott, of the Preusser Research Group which helps facilitate the projects, said the studies show the program has increased seat belt usage in areas where it has been implemented.
It’s a program KSP is excited to be a part of, said Post 11 Kentucky State Police Public Affairs Officer Scottie Pennington.
“Lincoln County ranks 50th in the state in seat belt usage so hopefully we can bring that number up and get the people of Lincoln County to wear their seat belts.”
Pennington said those 19 fatalities in Lincoln County affected many lives – mothers, fathers, siblings.
Law enforcement is usually first to respond to fatalities and they know first-hand how many lives are affected, he said.
“Fatals are real. They affect people in so many different ways and if KSP can partner with the sheriff’s office, city police, and these other agencies around the state to increase seat belt usage – we’re not here to write tickets or make people pay fines at the courthouse – state police along with these fine gentleman here and around the state are here to save lives,” he said. “We want families to go home every day and be safe.”
