This report presents results on the demographics of safety belt use from the 2003 National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS), with particular emphasis on results that evaluate aspects of the 2003 Click It or Ticket campaign to raise safety belt use nationwide. NOPUS provides the only probability-based observational results on belt use on the road in the United States, and is conducted annually by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The principal findings of the 2003 survey include that safety belt use increased substantially among those the advertising component of the 2003 campaign sought to reach, namely, males ranging between young adults and adults. The 2003 NOPUS also found increased use in urban and suburban areas, and among females in the same young-adult-to-adult age range. The latter may be because females were similarly affected by the advertising, or because they might be substantially influenced by the other major component of the 2003 campaign, highly visible enforcement activities conducted by police.