(Spirit Lake)– The Iowa State Patrol and local law enforcement agencies are involved in a special enforcement campaign through the end of the month. Kevin Krull of the Iowa State Patrol says this one focuses on the seat belt law. He says it’s being conducted in cooperation with the Iowa Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau…
“We’re going to be out there looking for those specific violations. It’s that time of the year where we want everybody to be safe. Too many times we find people that are unbuckled dying in our car crashes.”
Krull says it’s surprising the number of people who still are not using seat belts…
“The sad truth is we had 121 people last year in car crashes that died not wearing their seat belt. That’s 47 percent of our fatalities last year and with that being said, it’s one of those that would they have lived? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. But chances are they’re going to be safer if they had their seat belt on than if they didn’t.”
Krull adds it’s important to have that seat belt on even if you’re in the backseat…
“The backseat, you’re not required as an adult to wear it, but it’s a safety concern on that aspect. You want to be safe. And when we talk about 95, 94, 96 percent of the people that do wear their seat belt in accordance to the law, and we have 47 percent of our deaths in crashes, that’s six percent, five percent of the population that’s making up 50 percent of our deaths on these crashes, so it just tells us that seat belts do their job if you let ’em.”
The special enforcement continues now through May 31st.
