By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Sea Isle City’s police department wants to save you $47. More important, it wants to save your life.
The department will be participating in the national “Click It Or Ticket” seat belt enforcement campaign from May 24 to June 6.
Police Chief Tom McQuillen said Sea Isle will use the campaign as a public safety tool to educate motorists on the importance of seat belts and child restraint seats.
“They do save lives. It’s proven. We want to reinforce that message,” McQuillen said in an interview Tuesday.
Although some motorists will be given warnings, police will also be handing out tickets for seat belt violations. The fine is $47.
There will be no police checkpoints to catch seat belt violators. Instead, Sea Isle officers will be assigned to four-hour increments to drive around town and look for motorists who aren’t buckled up.
“We’ll try to stagger the times to gauge traffic at all different times of the day,” McQuillen said.
Sea Isle has secured a $6,000 grant to pay for its seat belt patrols, the first time it has received funding for the initiative.
McQuillen said the money reflects the city’s efforts to be more aggressive in seeking federal and state grants to help fund police department programs.
“We weren’t as keyed in before as we are now,” he said.
“They do save lives. It’s proven," Sea Isle Police Chief Tom McQuillen says of seat belts.
Other police departments in New Jersey are also participating in the Click It Or Ticket campaign this year. The enforcement program was not held in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2019, more than 340 police agencies in New Jersey participated in the campaign, resulting in 14,548 seat belt summonses, according to state statistics.
“Using a seat belt is the simplest way for motor vehicle occupants to protect themselves on the road,” Eric Heitmann, director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety, said in a statement. “Crash statistics show that in 2017 alone, seat belt use saved nearly 15,000 lives nationally.”
The focus for New Jersey’s 2021 Click It Or Ticket campaign will be to promote seat belt usage in both the front and back seats of all vehicles. More than 90 percent of drivers and front seat passengers use seat belts, but the figure drops to just 48 percent for adults riding in back seats, according to Heitmann’s statement.
“For whatever reason there seems to be a disconnect with people feeling they don’t need to buckle up when riding as passengers in rear seats, and this is a concern,” Heitmann said. “By promoting back seat usage of seat belts during our Click It or Ticket campaign, we’re encouraging passenger habits that will save lives.”
In Sea Isle, the police department has an officer who is a certified child safety seat technician to help parents keep their kids safe on the road.
Officer Tully O’Clisham will help parents set up their child safety seats in the right way. It is a free service. Parents may call the Sea Isle City Police Department at (609) 263-4311 to schedule an appointment.
