The Merrill PD will join hundreds of law enforcement agencies throughout
Wisconsin for the annual Click It or Ticket safety belt enforcement mobilization from May 20 to June 2.
“Our officers will be on the lookout day and night for unbuckled motorists. If you’re not wearing a safety belt, we will stop your vehicle and you will get a ticket,” said Captain Corey Bennett. “During the Click It or Ticket mobilization and throughout the year, we stringently enforce Wisconsin’s mandatory safety belt law to motivate people to buckle up every time they drive or ride in a vehicle. Last year, there were more than 100,000 convictions for failure to fasten a seat belt. Tragically, too many people are needlessly injured or killed because they believed a crash would never happen to them so they did not buckle up.”
In Wisconsin, approximately one out of five motorists does not buckle up, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. More than half of the drivers and passengers killed in Wisconsin traffic crashes in 2011 were not wearing safety belts.
“Consistent safety belt use is the most effective protection against being ejected from a vehicle during a crash or thrown around violently inside of it and possibly hitting another person in the vehicle with massive force,” Captain Bennett says. “Our officers take safety belt enforcement seriously in an effort to ultimately reduce the number of preventable traffic deaths to zero in Merrill as well as the State of Wisconsin as a whole.”