The Ohio State Highway Patrol partnered with Kings Island Saturday, Oct. 12, to host a Saved by the Belt event at the amusement park.
Nine individuals became members of the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Saved by the Belt club, including Zanesfield resident Sarah VanDyke, 23. Kings Island provided each recipient and their family members with one-day admission tickets to the park.
Each recipient received a framed Saved by the Belt certificate, license plate and license plate bracket.
Fellow recipients recognized from the Jackson, Piqua and Wilmington districts include: Dustin Akers, 27, of Proctorville; Reba L. Gilbert, 71, of Dayton; Bobbi Gilkerson, 17, of Lebanon; Elaine P. Halterman, 38, Urbana; Chase Lambert, 18, Lebanon; Curtis Blake Payne, 25, of Beaver; Timothy W. Walker, 46, Milford; and Wanda L. Walters, 88, of Huber Heights.
The Saved by the Belt nomination is in recognition of wearing a safety belt when involved in a traffic crash, thus avoiding serious injury or death.
From 2019 to current, there have been over 292,000 unbelted crashes on Ohio roadways. Of those crashes, over 2,900 were fatal crashes.
During that same time, more than 60 percent of all fatal crashes involved an unbelted individual when a safety belt was available.