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Local law enforcement to particpate in Click It or Ticket

The Concordia Police Department and the Cloud County Sheriff's Department will join 180 other law enforcement agencies in aggressively enforcing Kansas occupant restraint and other traffic laws as part of the 2019 Click It or Ticket campaign.
From May 20 through June 2, travelers can expect increased police presence on city streets and county roadways.
Enforcement will occur around the clock because seat belt use diminishes after nightfall, meaning the likelihood of unbelted crash injuries and deaths soars during those hours.
Drivers will be confronted with strict enforcement of both the Kansas Safety Belt Use Act and the Kansas Child Passenger Safety Act. These statutes require that all vehicle occupants must be appropriately restrained.
Law enforcement officers can stop vehicles and issue tickets when they observe occupants riding unrestrained or without proper restraint.
Occupants ages 14 and over are cited individually. If a passenger under the age of 14 is observed to be unrestrained, the driver will be cited. The fine for an adult, 18 and over, seat belt violation is $30. The fine for a youth, 14-17, violation is $60 and the fine for a child, 0-13, restraint violation is $60 plus a court cost charge of as much as $108.
Children under the age of four must be correctly secured in an approved child safety seat. Children ages 4-7 must be securely belted into an approved booster seat unless taller than 4-9 or heavier than 80 pounds, in which case the booster may be removed, and the child belted in without it.
Children ages 8-13 must be safety-belted.
In addition, Kansas law prohibits persons under the age of 14 from riding in any part of a vehicle not intended for carrying passengers, such as a pickup bed.
For answers to any child safety restraint questions and the location of the nearest safety seat fitting station or safety seat technician, contact the Kansas Traffic Safety Resource Office at 1-800-416-2522 or write ktsro@dcca.org.
The aim of Click It or Ticket is simple: to drastically reduce the number of preventable deaths and injuries that occur when unbelted drivers and passengers are involved in traffic crashes.
About 345 persons are involved in 179 crashes each day in Kansas. According to the Kansas Department of Transportation ( KDOT), 93 percent of them are buckled in. As for those who are not strapped in, only 7 percent of them are likely to escape without injury.
While seat belts may not always prevent serious or fatal injury, certainly no piece of equipment within a vehicle provides more protection.
Kansas' overall adult seat belt compliance is 84 percent and ranges, by county, from 71 percent to 96 percent, with occupants in rural counties generally less likely to buckle up than those in urban counties.
According to KDOT, this rural-urban difference in rates of buckling up is especially problematic because rural roadway conditions are, in general, less forgiving than those in urban areas, and the consequences of driver misjudgment, such as unsafe speed and failure to buckle up, are likely to be more severe in the event of a crash. It is easy to see why almost two-thirds of Kansas' fatality crashes occur on rural roadways while these roads account for only one-third of all crashes.
As for child passenger safety, Kansans like to see their state as one which protects children, and it does well with the youngest ones.
Overall, those children ages 0-4 are buckled in to child safety seats at a rate of 97 percent. However, only 87 percent of children 5-14 are properly restrained. This means that one out of eight Kansas children, ages 5-14, are made especially vulnerable while traveling by the failure of the driver to restrain them. In 70 percent of those cases the driver is also unbelted.
According to Concordia Police Chief Ric Fredrickson and Cloud County Sheriff Brian Marks, “We want the people of Concordia and Cloud County to remember when they don't buckle up themselves, or require their passengers to buckle up, they are, in effect, promising themselves and those passengers, as well as family and friends, that no circumstance will arise that will activate seat belts, whether it be chemical impairment, distraction, sleepiness, kids fighting in the back seat, etc., either in their own vehicle or in the other vehicles they may meet on the road.”
“We want the people to know, that day or night, the Concordia Police Department and Cloud County Sheriff's Department are committed to aggressively ticketing violators of adult seat belt and child safety laws, as well as other traffic infractions, which make the need for occupant restraint so necessary. The stop will be inconvenient, your vehicle and driver's license number will likely be checked for outstanding warrants and insurance, and you will pay at least $30 to the court. So use your belt and save yourself the trouble.”

 

Concordia Blade-Empire

510 Washington St.
Concordia, KS 66901