GARY - The National "Click it or Ticket" campaign that the Gary Police Department participated in resulted in just over 270 citations. Gary Police Department Public Information Officer Lieutenant Dawn Westerfield says the operation lasted from May 11th to June 3rd with the hopes of raising seatbelt compliance.
"Within those three short weeks, we cited 250 people for not being seat belt complaint," Westerfield says. "Additionally we cited 23 people for not having their children in proper car seats. I know to some people that these seem like small annoyances. Seat belts and car seats save lives. If we could just raise seat belt compliance by one percent, that's 10 lives a year that we can save."
The Gary Police Department receives grant money from the state to work special enforcements looking for specific types of traffic violations, but Westerfield says citations
were issued for several other types of violations.
"We also had multiple speed violations, stop sign violations, and arrests for licensing violations," Westerfield says.
Click it or Ticket is a nationwide campaign. Westerfield says it's necessary as police have learned that the only way to gain seat belt compliance is through enforcement. 2018 marks 30 years since Indiana's seat-belt law began. Indiana, along with 34 other states, have enacted a primary seat-belt law, meaning that police can pull motorists over for being unbuckled.
