​National seatbelt awareness campaign and high visibility enforcement effort
 
 
SANTA FE -- The New Mexico Department of Transportation and local law enforcement agencies remind drivers to buckle up during the national annual Click it or Ticket seat belt enforcement campaign which begins May 15. Law enforcement will be out looking for unrestrained drivers and passengers during a concentrated enforcement period May 22 through June 4, which coincides with the Memorial Day holiday.
 
“It should be a part of every driver’s routine,” said Transportation Secretary Ricky Serna. “You get in the vehicle, you buckle-up. It only takes a few seconds and it’s proven to help save lives. It’s remarkable people still drive without seatbelts. It’s not only the law it’s your life.”
 
Face the Facts

• According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 50% of those killed in crashes in 2021 were unrestrained.
• The national seat belt use rate in 2022 was 91.6%, which is good — but we can do better. The Click it or Ticket campaign focuses on the 8.4% who still don’t buckle up.

• Among young adults 18 to 34 killed in passenger vehicle crashes in 2021, more than half (59%) were completely unrestrained — one of the highest percentages for all age groups.
• Men make up the majority of those killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes. In 2021, 66% of the 26,325 passenger vehicle occupants who were killed were men. Men also wear their seat belts at a lower rate than women do — 54% of men killed in crashes were unrestrained, compared to 42% of women killed in crashes.

Bust the Myths

• Vehicle type: There seems to be a misconception among those who drive and ride in pickup trucks that their larger vehicles will protect them better than other vehicle types would in a crash. The numbers say otherwise: 61% of pickup truck occupants who were killed in 2021 were not buckled. That’s compared to 47% of passenger car occupants who were not wearing seat belts when they were killed. Regardless of vehicle type, seat belt use is the single most effective way to stay alive in a crash.
• Seating position: Too many people wrongly believe they are safe in the back seat unrestrained. Fifty percent of all front-seat passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2021 were unrestrained, but 57% of those killed in back seats were unrestrained.
• Rural versus urban locations: People who live in rural areas might believe their crash exposure is lower, but in 2021, there were 12,534 passenger vehicle fatalities in rural locations, compared to 13,681 fatalities in urban locations. Out of those fatalities, 51% of those killed in the rural locations were not wearing their seat belts, compared to 49% in urban locations.

Click It or Ticket — Day and Night

• High-visibility seat belt enforcement is important 24 hours a day, but nighttime is especially deadly for unbuckled occupants. In 2021, 57% of passenger vehicle occupants killed at night (6 p.m.–5:59 a.m.) were not wearing their seat belts.
• Click It or Ticket isn’t about citations; it’s about saving lives. In 2021, there were 11,813 unbuckled passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in the United States. To help prevent crash fatalities, we need to step up seat belt enforcement, day and night.

Learn more about the Click It or Ticket mobilization at NHTSA.gov/ciot.

ROSWELL - (AP) A New Mexico man, overwhelmed by guilt, borrowed a cellphone to call 911 and confess to the 2008 killing of his former landlord and he also told police where the body was buried, authorities said Tuesday.

Police said Tony Ray Peralta, 37, of Roswell, was booked into the Chaves County jail on suspicion of murder.

They said Peralta went to a store Monday afternoon, borrowed a cellphone to call 911 and told a dispatcher that he had killed someone. Officers went to the store and Peralta was detained for questioning.

Police investigators then obtained a search warrant for a house where Peralta had been a tenant of 69-year-old William Blodgett. He told them where he buried the body, and they found a boot, bones and dentures after removing plywood floorboards from a detached room on the side of the house.

A tearful Peralta told police during an interview that he didn't know why he had killed Blodgett and that he just needed to confess, according to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint.
Peralta told police he decided to come forward because “his heart hurts” and that the killing had been eating at him. He told the officer to tell Blodgett's family “that he was a good man and that he didn't deserve what I did.”

“I don't have an excuse,” he told police, according to the affidavit. “A lot of people have an excuse, I don't have one.”

Peralta was being represented by the major crimes unit within the public defender’s office.

“We are just beginning to work with Mr. Peralta on this case, and we will make sure Mr. Peralta’s due process is respected as this case starts to move through the court,” said attorney Ray Conley, who leads the unit.

The dentures found at the property were compared with Blodgett’s dental records — obtained in early 2009 after he was reported missing — and that led to a positive identification, according to police.

Blodgett’s girlfriend and family had not seen him since late December 2008. She told police that Peralta, who was considered a suspect by police early on, allegedly had some sort or argument or fight with Blodgett, who had tried to evict him.

Authorities at the time had talked to Blodgett’s family, friends and neighbors and visited the home the two men shared, which appeared to have been abandoned with personal belongings still in place. Police found no immediate signs of foul play and Blodgett's vehicle was still there, according to the original missing person report.

Detectives would periodically drive by the house but never spotted anyone. They also brought a dog trained to sniff for bodies to the property but found nothing.
​
Police said the case went cold after investigators exhausted all leads until Peralta's 911 call.
___
Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Associated Press writers Walter Berry and Terry Tang contributed from Phoenix.