About 22,000 people have been caught not wearing seatbelts in Hawke's Bay since 2009 - an "extremely concerning" figure, according to a road safety advocate.
Police data showed 21,962 people were fined $150 for driving without a seatbelt in the last seven years in the Bay, totalling almost $3.2 million in fines.
Last year, 2050 people were caught - the lowest year of the period, down from more than 4000 in 2009. But Road Safe Hawke's Bay manager Linda Anderson said the number of people choosing not to wear a seatbelt was still far too high.
"It's extremely concerning. We've had enough incidents of crashes of unrestrained vehicle occupants, which is a sharp reminder to people," she said.
"We're always very pleased that it is dropping, and I think a lot of that is around the joint work we're doing with our key stakeholders, which is police."