Police Plan Seatbelt Enforcement Project

Town police will participate in the national seatbelt enforcement project known as Click-It or Ticket from May 23 through June 5.

Police will step up their enforcement of seatbelt usage laws both day and night.

Because nighttime passenger-vehicle occupants are among those least likely to buckle up and the most likely to die in crashes when unrestrained, nighttime seatbelt enforcement has become a priority, police said.

Of those who died in nighttime crashes nationwide in 2009, nearly two-thirds (62 percent) were not wearing seat belts at the time of their fatal crashes, police said.

 “Many more nighttime traffic deaths can be prevented if more motorists simply start wearing their seat belts. That’s why the Newtown Police Department is strongly supporting enhanced nighttime enforcement of seatbelt laws during the May 23 to June 5 Click-It or Ticket campaign,” police Lieutenant George Sinko said in a statement.

The Newtown, Redding, Bethel, and Brookfield police departments will conduct a regional seatbelt enforcement project during the Click-It or Ticket enforcement campaign. Police from all four towns will spend a day in each town in a cooperative effort to enforce the seatbelt laws.

High-visibility enforcement is credited with increasing the national belt usage rate from 58 percent in 1994 to an observed usage rate of 85 percent in 2010, according to police.

In 2009 alone, seat belts saved 12,713 lives nationwide, police said.