RUMFORD — Local police received a $3,000 state grant to conduct safety belt enforcement patrols from now through June 1, police Chief Stacy Carter said Tuesday in an email.
The grant from the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety is from the 2014 “Buckle Up, No Excuses!” program, which supports the national “Click It or Ticket” campaign.
Carter said the safety belt education and enforcement program is designed to target and increase safety belt use by adults.
Although this two-week period will be a time for high-visibility details, the passage of Maine’s primary belt law allows officers to stop and summon operators/passengers for not wearing safety belts at any time, he said.
“The Rumford Police Department asks for voluntary compliance to keep the motoring public safe,” he said.
According to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that Carter provided, safety belt use in 2012 saved an estimated 12,174 people from dying. From 2008 to 2012, safety belts saved nearly 63,000 lives.
Young adults are dying at a disproportionate rate because they are not wearing their safety belts, an NHTSA fact sheet stated. Sixty-two percent of 18- to 34-year-old passenger-vehicle occupants killed in crashes were not wearing their safety belts. More men than women die every year in motor vehicle traffic crashes. In 2012, 65 percent of the 21,667 passenger vehicle occupants killed were men, the fact sheet stated.
Men also wore their seat belts less often than women in fatal crashes — 56 percent of men were unrestrained, compared to 43 percent for women, the fact sheet stated.
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