Buckle Up in the Parks: Enforcement Program Starts Saturday

New York state and park police are about to start the third year of a special seatbelt initiative because they keep seeing a dangerous and disturbing trend: cars entering parks full of people without seat belts on.

Especially children.

Now, New York was the first state with a primary seatbelt law. Compliance is high—91 percent statewide. PR campaigns like Click It or Ticket have been considered extremely successful.

Except, apparently, for people planning to commune with nature.

Park visitors are far less compliant. And they’re not taking care of their kids.

So, for the third year in a row, state and park police are about to mount an enforcement and education campaign along with the national parks police. This enforcement period kicks off on July 11 and runs through July 26.

During the 2014 BUNY in the Parks campaign, state police and state parks police issued nearly 3,000 tickets. More than 1,600 of those tickets were for improper child restraints and more than 540 for adult seat belt violations. In July alone, out of a total 2,219 tickets issued, only 546 were to adults while 1,673 were to children.

“People think they’re in a park and traffic laws do not apply; however, this is not the case,” Technical Sgt. Todd Engwer, the state police liaison to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s traffic safety committee, said before an August campaign last year.

Also what the officers see at park entrances, he said, is overcrowded cars.

“And quite frequently it is the young children who are unbuckled,” he said. “In some cases, you’d see where the adults were buckled up, and in many cases the children had no seat belts.”

Highlights of New York State’s occupant restraint law:

• In the front seat, the driver and each passenger must wear a seat belt, one person per belt. The driver and front-seat passengers aged 16 or older can be fined up to $50 each for failure to buckle up.
• Every occupant, regardless of age or seating position, of a motor vehicle being operated by the holder of a Class-DJ Learner Permit, a Limited Class-DJ, or Class-DJ Driver License must be restrained by a safety restraint.
• Each passenger under age 16 must wear a seat belt or use an appropriate child safety restraint system. The restraint system must comply with the child height and weight recommendations determined by the manufacturer. Depending on the size of the child, the restraint system may be a safety seat or a booster seat used in combination with a lap and shoulder belt.
• The driver must make sure that each passenger under age 16 obeys the law. The driver can be fined $25 to $100 and receive up to three driver license penalty points for each violation.

According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), car crashes are a leading cause of death for children one to 13 years old. In 2012, more than 37 percent of children killed in crashes were not in car seats, booster seats or seat belts. Car seats reduce the risk of fatal injury by 71 percent for infants and by 54 percent for toddlers in vehicles.