Wright County law enforcement officers will conduct saturation patrols during Safe and Sober’s May “Click it or Ticket” seatbelt campaign. This enforcement and education program will take place May 24-June 6. Patrol officers from the Annandale, Buffalo and Howard Lake Police departments will join forces with the Wright County Sheriff’s Office and the Minnesota State Patrol in saving lives on our highways and county roads by using high tech laser equipment. “Our squads will be looking for motorists who are traveling at excessive speeds and not complying with the seatbelt laws,” says Wright County Sheriff Gary Miller. Two of the saturation patrols will occur Tuesday afternoons. Squads will visibly enforce traffic laws on Hwy. 12 between Delano and Montrose Tuesday, May 25, possibly with assistance from Minnesota State Patrol aircraft. Patrols will be on I-94 in Monticello Tuesday, June 1. Highway 55 will be patrolled Saturday, May 29, in conjunction with Hennepin and Stearns counties. Other areas of the county will also receive additional enforcement. The purpose of these programs is to alert the public to the dangers of excessive speed and non-compliance with seatbelt use. In Minnesota in 2002, 196 occupants in rollover crashes died. Of those, 152 or 78 percent were unbelted. One hundred sixteen of those 152 dead occupants could have survived the rollover had they been wearing seatbelts or properly restrained in child safety seats. The Safe and Sober grant program is funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and coordinated by the Office of Traffic Safety, through the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
