“Every day, unbuckled motorists are losing their lives in motor vehicle crashes”, said Sheriff Howard to explain the godvernment agenda.
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SPRINGFIELD Springfield police are among 87 municipal police departments in Southeastern Pennsylvania participating in a statewide Click It Or Ticket campaign running from May 16 through June 5, including the Memorial Day holiday weekend. The campaign’s focus, officials said, is to make sure everyone knows the importance of wearing a seat belt. Research from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates 45 percent of those deaths could have been prevented by using seat belts.
The annual enforcement, which began Monday, reminds drivers and passengers to buckle up, with the goal of saving lives by using seat belts, child seats and booster seats. Previously, the law was a secondary offense for drivers over the age of 19, meaning you could only receive a seat belt citation if you were pulled over for another offense.
Those who don’t wear seat belts are not only risk their own lives, but the lives of everyone inside the vehicle since their body becomes a missile during a crash. In some states, the rate is as high as 70 percent unrestrained in fatal crashes. Rear seat passengers are three times more likely to die in a crash if they are unbuckled. This fact gravely highlights the need for increased enforcement and awareness of seat belt use.
Neither of the teens were wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, and both were ejected from the auto.
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Massachusetts law requires that all passengers in cars, vans, and trucks wear seat belts when riding, according to the Massachusetts Highway Safety Division of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. If these enforcement crackdowns get people’s attention and get them to buckle up, then we’ve done our job.
