Bergen County Sheriff Participating In Click It Or Ticket Campaign

The Bergen County Sheriff's Office is participating in the national Click It or Ticket campaign, which promotes safer driving by targeting motorists who don’t wear their seatbelts.

Until June 5, police will man checkpoints and patrol details to look for motorists who are not using their seat belts.

“As law enforcement, we have a distinctive role in helping protect the safety of our citizens, and wearing a seat belt is one of the most important steps in increasing survivability in a crash," said Sheriff Michael Saudino in a statement. Our job is to stop those who are not buckled up, and to keep them from repeating this potentially deadly mistake."

The sheriff's office received a $5,000 grant from the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety to participate in the program.

Several Bergen County municipal police departments are also participating in the program.

Click It or Ticket campaigns have increased safety seat belt compliance in New Jersey and has shown a steady increase from 88 percent in 2014 to 91 percent in 2015.

A key focus of this year’s campaign is to get adults sitting in the back of vehicles to use their seatbelts more. Adults who sit in the back of vehicles only use seatbelts 39 percent of the time, while those sitting in the front use them nine out of 10 times.

In 2013, of the 21,000 people killed in traffic accidents, nearly half were not wearing a seat belt.

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Image courtesy of the Bergen County Sheriff's Office