TheDay.com
Westerly, R.I. ?? The Westerly, Rhode Island Police Department will participate in the Click it or Ticket Mobilization, a national effort by 13,000 law enforcement agencies to encourage seat belt use.
During the mobilization, officers will intensify enforcement of safety belt and child passenger safety laws by increasing patrols and will encourage teens to buckle up by publicizing the effort where young people congregate.
The mobilization is conducted twice a year by the Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign in conjunction with law enforcement agencies, state highway safety officers, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. According to the NHTSA, 8,000 American adults and children will die in crashes because they failed to buckle their seat belts. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that child fatalities have declined 20 percent since the mobilization began in 1997.
This year, police will seek to reach out to teens and young adults, ages 16 to 24, by announcing the goals of the mobilization on Internet chat rooms, over public address systems, in high schools and college campuses, in athletic stadiums and other places where young people gather.
According to the NHTSA, fatality rates for teens are twice those of older drivers, and the risk of crashes for teens is four times higher. Only 69 percent of teens and young adults, age 16 to 24, use seat belts, compared to the national average of 79 percent. Police said the mobilization encourages seat belt use because the threat of a ticket has proven to be a greater inducement than the threat of injury or death due to a car crash.