By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Police officers will be on the prowl for the next two weeks, looking for drivers and their passengers who have not buckled their seatbelts during the national Click It or Ticket campaign, which runs from May 23 to June 5.
Police officers from Princeton Packet area police departments will be taking part in high-visibility seat belt checkpoints, as well as saturation patrols. The goal is to ensure that drivers and passengers recognize the life-saving value of seat belts.
Lawrence Township police officers issued more than 4,600 summonses to drivers and passengers over the past nine years during the annual campaign, Chief of Police Mark Ubry said. He added that he hoped it has “changed the mindset of at least a portion of these individuals and convinced them to wear their seatbelt.”
“Seat belts increase the safety of others in the vehicle, as it restrains their body and reduces the risk of colliding with someone else who is seated in the vehicle,” Chief Ubry said. “There are too many occasions where a death or serious injury could have been avoided if a seat belt had been worn. This is why wearing a seat belt is the law, and not a choice.”
West Windsor Township police Sgt. Danny Mohr agreed, and said that the point of the campaign is to reinforce the life-saving values of seat belts. During the 2015 campaign, the West Windsor Township Police Department stopped 62 motorists and issued 47 tickets.
And for drivers who are passing through Montgomery Township, Capt. Robert Palmer has just two words of advice for them — “Buckle up.” Police officers will be looking for offenders in that township.
Capt. Palmer pointed to statistics that showed that between 2010 and 2014, more than half of car occupants who were killed were not wearing their seat belts. He added that 57 percent of car occupants between 18 and 34 years old who were killed in 2014 were not belted in.
The Princeton Police Department, as always, continues to keep the safety of motorists among its highest priorities, added Chief of Police Nicholas Sutter.
The Plainsboro Police Department is also taking part in the Click It or Ticket campaign, and its police officers will be out in force to make sure that motorists pay heed to the law. Drivers and passengers must wear seat belts.
A key focus of this year’s campaign is to promote seat belt usage by passengers in the rear seat of the car, said Gary Poedubicky, the acting director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety.
The front seat belt usage rate in New Jersey is 91.3 percent, but adults riding in the back seat are only buckling up at a rate of 39 percent, Mr. Poedubicky said. It is a concern, he said, adding that “we need to drive home the message that all occupants need to buckle up during every trip, in every seating position.”
During last year’s Click It or Ticket campaign, 372 New Jersey police departments took part in the campaign and issued more than 26,000 seat belt summonses, nearly 5,000 speeding tickets and also arrested 833 drunken driving arrests.
