The Wright County Sheriff’s Office, Minnesota State Patrol, and Annandale, Buffalo and Howard Lake police departments teamed up in an effort to inform the motoring public of the importance of adhering to Minnesota’s seatbelt law. The “Click it or Ticket” campaign ran May 24 through June 6. In Wright County, squads working the Safe and Sober saturation patrols stopped more than 400 vehicles, and issued tickets and warnings for nearly 600 traffic offenses such as not wearing seatbelts, speed, driving without a valid driver’s license and equipment violations. “The importance of properly using vehicle restraint systems cannot be emphasized enough,” Wright County Sheriff Gary Miller said. “On June 6th a woman driving on county road 35, in St. Michael, became distracted, struck a mailbox, went into a ditch, and vaulted after striking an embankment. Her vehicle went airborne and came to rest on its side. The driver’s twin infants, properly restrained in infant seats, sustained no serious injuries nor did the belted driver. Without proper use of the vehicle’s restraint system, there is no doubt the children or driver would have been seriously injured or deceased.” Wright County’s Safe and Sober program is a federally-funded program administered by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Office of Traffic Safety. The next Safe and Sober enforcement wave will focus on speed, and will take place in July.
