San Mateo Co. Sheriff's Bearing Down On Seatbelt Offenders

REDWOOD CITY, CA — The San Mateo County Sheriff's Department is joining law enforcement agencies nationwide out on the roads from May 20 through June 2 to remind drivers and passengers to buckle their seatbelts.

The annual "Click It or Ticket" campaign aims at promoting seatbelt use to help keep travelers safe as they drive to their summer destinations.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 10,076 people who were killed in passenger vehicle crashes in 2017 weren’t buckled. Fifty-five percent of those fatalities happened at night from 6 p.m. to 5:59 a.m.

Law enforcement will be taking a no-excuses approach to seatbelt law enforcement during the campaign, with plans to write citations day and night to offenders, the sheriff's department warned.

The minimum cost for an adult seatbelt violation in California is $162 and a minimum of $465 for not properly restraining a child under 16. If the parent is not in the car, the driver gets the ticket.

In nearly every state and the District of Columbia, seatbelt use is required by law. In 2017 alone, seatbelts saved an estimated 14,955 lives, the nation's traffic safety administration reported. If all passenger vehicle occupants ages 5 and older had worn their seatbelts that same year, it’s estimated that an additional 2,549 lives could have been saved.