North Dakota's rural roads are vital social and economic connectors. These roads, however, are associated with relatively high crash injury risk. While a multitude of efforts is underway to reduce crash risk through road improvements and vehicle technology, seat belts offer an immediate and low-cost protection that can reduce occupant crash injury risk by half. To increase knowledge about seat belt use on these roads, a pilot observation study was conducted around the time of the state's annual seat belt campaign. This pilot project creates a building point for increasing knowledge and strengthening programs through empirical analysis of rural seat belt use rates. The value of this pilot will be determined by future work that reduces crash injury and death by knowledge gained in extending and expanding the empirical analysis initiated by this endeavor.