The Kimball Police Department recently wrapped up the statewide “Safe and Sober” campaign to increase seatbelt usage among motorists. “The main goal of the promotion was to increase seatbelt usage percentages among motorists,” said Todd Rohloff, Kimball police chief. Every year the campaign has a different theme, this year’s was “Click it or Ticket.” The first step of “Click it or Ticket,” which kicked off May 19, involved a traffic survey. “We observed 100 cars and kept track of how many motorists were wearing seatbelts and how many were not,” Rohloff said. In Rohloff’s initial sampling, 89 percent of the motorists were wearing seatbelts. In the survey he conducted at the end of the two-week period, Rohloff found a satisfactory 3 percent increase in seatbelt usage “The goal is to maintain a seatbelt usage percentage in the lower nineties,” he said. “We like to shoot for 100 percent, but that’s usually as good as it gets.” The reason for the increased pressure put on motorists to abide by seatbelt laws is attributed to the 657 traffic fatalities that occurred on Minnesota roads -half of which involved motorists not wearing seatbelts. “It’s a matter of personal safety,” Rohloff said. “We want people to wear seatbelts so if there is a car crash they only have minor injuries. The odds of surviving a crash are definitely in your favor if you wear a seatbelt -it keeps you in the car. Otherwise if you are in a head-on collision or a roll-over you are just a projectile.” So why don’t people wear seatbelts? “All the people I stopped know they are supposed to wear a seatbelt, they usually just forget or have some kind of personal reason for not wearing it.” Overall, Rohloff found the program to be a success. “It really helps us make our presence known to the those people who need a little extra push from the law enforcement,” Rohloff said.
