Sea Isle Police Joining ’21 Click It or Ticket Campaign

SEA ISLE CITY – Law enforcement officers from the Sea Isle City Police Department will join with police from around the country in cracking down on unbuckled motorists and passengers as part of the national “Click it or Ticket” campaign. 
According to a release, Sea Isle City Police Department Chief Thomas McQuillen said the department is excited to have been awarded grant funding for this important campaign and will have officers on patrol looking for motorists who are not wearing the required seat belts while operating their motor vehicles. 
“We encourage every person driving in a car to wear a seat belt and ensure their younger passengers are properly secured with a seat belt or in a car seat, depending on the child’s height and weight,” stated McQuillen.
Beginning May 24 and running through June 6, the annual “Click It or Ticket” national mobilization utilizes high visibility seat belt checkpoints and saturation patrols, in combination with local and national publicity efforts, to reiterate the life-saving value of seat belts.
“Using a seat belt is the simplest way for motor vehicle occupants to protect themselves on the road,” stated Eric Heitmann, director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety. “Crash statistics show that, in 2017 alone, seat belt use saved nearly 15,000 lives nationally.”
In New Jersey, a key focus of this year’s Click It or Ticket campaign is to promote seat belt usage by adults in all seating positions in the vehicle, both front and rear seats. The front seat belt usage rate in New Jersey currently stands at 90.23%. However, adults riding in rear seats are buckling up at a significantly lower rate, only 48% according to the most recent surveys.
“For whatever reason, there seems to be a disconnect with people feeling they don’t need to buckle up when riding as passengers in rear seats, and this is a concern,” Heitmann stated. “By promoting back seat usage of seat belts during our Click It or Ticket campaign, we’re encouraging passenger habits that will save lives.”
The 2020 Click It or Ticket mobilization was canceled due to the Covid public health emergency. During the 2019 Click it or Ticket campaign, 343 New Jersey police agencies participated in the two-week initiative. As a result of the effort, law enforcement officers issued 14,548 seat belt citations, 5,670 speeding summonses and made 858 impaired driving arrests.