 |
| Top
Stories |
Tuesday 9 December, 2003
County
police: Buckle up or be busted
|
| JIM KINNEY
, The Saratogian |
12/09/2003 |
|
BALLSTON
SPA -- Police hope to use monthly enforcement pushes and more
public relations outreach in an effort to get more people to
buckle their seat belts.
Sgt.
Dan Larkin, the state police liaison to the Governor's Traffic
Safety Committee, said pickup-truck drivers, back-seat
passengers and teen drivers who have just received licenses tend
to use seat belts less than anyone else. He spoke Monday at a
meeting of the Saratoga County Traffic Safety Committee.
Besides hearing from Larkin, the committee decided that each of
the 14 police agencies in the county will have special DWI
enforcement sometime between Dec. 19 and the end of the year.
Each agency has enough state grant money for about 24 hours of
police overtime.
Committee Chairman and Saratoga Springs Police Sgt. William
Crandall said officers shouldn't think twice about ticketing a
new driver for violating the seat belt law because many young
people die in crashes because they weren't wearing belts. He
said city police enforce heavily near the high schools.
'It might be the most important ticket you write. In my
experience, if you write them a ticket for seat belt, you never
see them again,' Crandall said. 'If the message you give is that
it is a wink and a nod and it is OK, that's wrong.'
Larkin said a recent state police observational study -- set up
at 200 locations around upstate New York in June -- showed a
91.4 percent compliance rate. That number tends to change,
rising after the state police do a 'Buckle Up New York'
enforcement drive. The data also don't include back-seat
passengers or the New York City area, where compliance rates are
lower, Larkin said.
He said the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee estimates a
compliance rate of about 85 percent. That's up from 75 percent
compliance in 1998.
'That next jump in compliance is going to be tough to make,'
Larkin said. 'We've got to figure out how we are going to reach
that last 10 or 15 percent out there.'
Crandall said the compliance rate in the city is at more than 90
percent.
Larkin said the committee will suggest -- it can't lobby the
Legislature, but it can make suggestions -- that the state make
it illegal for someone over the age of 16 to ride in the back
seat without a belt. Currently, it is legal. Larkin said
unbelted passengers get thrown around or thrown out of cars in
wrecks.
Larkin said that if there is an unbelted passenger in the back
seat, the front seat passenger is 2˝ times more likely to be
seriously injured.
|
| ŠThe
Saratogian 2003 |
 |
|
Dan
Addressed Saratoga Safety Meeting
