Muskego Police to Step Up Seat Belt Enforcement

As part of a statewide focus involving more than 300 law enforcement agencies to promote seatbelt compliance with all motorists, Muskego Police will institute seatbelt enforcement patrols beginning May 23.

The "Click it or Ticket" initiative pays special attention to traffic enforcement of the seatbelt laws.  According to Muskego Police Lieutenant Andrew Kraus, last year's efforts saw 44 citations written for seatbelt violations, which was a significant increase than from regular patrols, but that isn't the goal of the program.

"We're not trying to write more tickets, we're trying to increase compliance," Kraus said, adding that the summer months are especially critical for younger drivers.

"We've seen stats from the department of transportation that teenagers are more likely to die in motor vehicle accidents during the summer months,  so we're hoping to drive that point home to use safety belts to increase their chances of surviving an accident."

To punctuate the point a release from the department stated, "although seatbelt use is up in Wisconsin to an all-time high of 79 percent in 2010, we still fall short of the national average of 84 percent.  Across the country there is a traffic fatality every 14 minutes and an injury 13 seconds.  The easiest way to avoid being one of those statistics is consistent use of a safety belt."