Click It or Ticket Campaign
SOMERVILLE, MA----
Somerville Police have joined the 2017 Click It or Ticket Campaign and will begin enforcing seat belt use as part of the national awareness to spread the importance of buckling up.
The SPD aims to mobilize specific traffic units to increase the maximum visibility of seat belt enforcement in the Somerville Area. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there is at least 1 fatality as a result of a crash every 15 minutes. In Massachusetts, the NHTSA conducted a study that showed that the belt use rate is at 74.1% the second lowest rate nationwide to that of South Dakota at 73.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration states that nearly half of the 22,441 passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2015 were unrestrained. At night, between the hours of 6 p.m. to 5:59 a.m, that number soared to 57 percent of those killed.
That's why one focus of the Click It or Ticket campaign is nighttime enforcement. For this reason, the Somerville Police and other police departments nationwide will join together to crack down on seat belt violations. We also ask our residents to encourage others to use their seat belts. Please, help the Somerville Police Dept. spread this life-saving message before one more friend or family member is killed as a result of this senseless inaction. Seat belts save lives, and everyone --child and adult--needs to remember to buckle up every time. The Somerville Police Department will continue to enforce this law and count on community support for driver safety because "in real life, you don't get a second chance."