‘Click It or Ticket’ campaign to begin

By Cleve Wiese

Published: May 17, 2008

Area police will be stepping up enforcement over the next two weeks with saturation patrols, checkpoints and a “zero tolerance” attitude to crack down on motorists caught without a seatbelt.
Police hope the effort – part of the annual “Click It or Ticket May Mobilization,” a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of the benefits of buckling up – will make drivers and passengers more conscientious about protecting themselves.
“It’s so simple, it only takes a few seconds, and yet, time and again, we see individuals killed in traffic crashes who would have survived if they had been buckled up,” said Corinne Geller, a spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police.
Of the 749 people killed in Virginia traffic accidents last year, 60 percent were not wearing seatbelts, according to Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles statistics. An unbelted 16-year-old Wilson Memorial High School student was killed in March when her Jeep Wrangler overturned on a dirt road near Fishersville. 
“There are still too many people dying or being injured as a result of not buckling up ... ,” Waynesboro Police Chief Doug Davis said in a media release. “That’s why this May and throughout the year, we are increasing enforcement to continue to impress upon all citizens that seat belt is a must when getting into any vehicle.”
But because Virginia is one of 24 states where not wearing a seatbelt is a secondary law — meaning motorists can only be ticketed if they are pulled over for another reason – enforcing it can be difficult, said Sgt. Monty Sellers of the Augusta County Sheriff’s Department.
During the “Click It or Ticket” campaign, sheriff’s deputies will be keeping a particularly close lookout for other violations, such as expired registration or inspection stickers, that will enable them to pull over drivers not wearing seatbelts, Sellers said. Checkpoints take this tactic a step further, allowing officers to get a closer look at vehicles and examine driver’s licenses and insurance and registration documents, Sellers said.
But the secondary status of the law inevitably limits what officers can do, he said.
“I definitely believe they should have a primary law,” Sellers said. “Statistics and studies show seatbelts save lives and prevent injuries. If it became a primary law, you’d have people buckling up because they’d know they’d be stopped if they didn’t.”
The rate of traffic fatalities in states with secondary enforcement laws is 9 percent higher than states with primary laws, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics. Seatbelt use in states that upgrade to primary laws rapidly increases by an average of 7 to 9 percent, according to the statistics. 
A bill to institute primary seatbelt laws in Virginia was passed by the state Senate this year but stalled in a House committee. Such bills are introduced — and defeated — on an almost annual basis, said Judie Stone, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. Despite overwhelming evidence that primary laws increase seatbelt use, and tantalizing federal funding incentives, resistance remains strong, Stone said.
If Virginia passed a primary enforcement seatbelt law, the NHTSA would add a one-time, $16.5 million grant to its annual funding package, said spokesman Eric Bolton. The state would also be eligible for the grant if seatbelt use rates reached 85 percent for two consecutive years. The current rate is 79.9 percent, according to Department of Motor Vehicles statistics.
Opponents of primary seatbelt laws see the debate as a matter of personal freedom, said Bonnie Sesolak, development director of the National Motorists Association.
“We don’t think the government should mandate what we can do in our cars in terms of what would be safe and not safe … ,” Sesolak said. “And certainly if I chose not to wear my seatbelt, it’s not something that would affect you as a driver.”
But the overwhelming financial cost of traumatic traffic accidents undermines that argument, said state Del. Dave W. Marsden, of Fairfax County, a co-patron of the most-recent bill to upgrade Virginia’s seatbelt law to primary status.
“For a number of folks, it seems like the nanny state, people trying to tell you what to do,” Marsden said. “But your personal freedoms stop when my tax dollars have to go towards paying for medical care that could have been prevented by seatbelt use.”