Seat belt enforcement increases

For the next week, unbelted and unsafe drivers are in danger of being "blitzed" by the police.\nThe Monroe County Sheriff's Department, the IU Police Department and the Bloomington Police Department, along with 180 police agencies across the state, are participating in Indiana's Operation Pullover Blitz from May 20 to June 2. Thursday's activities will include a seat belt enforcement zone at an undisclosed location on Atwater Avenue.\n"The object of this operation is to raise the awareness of seat belt usage in our community," BPD Cpt. Joe Qualters said. "We will accomplish that by doing roving patrols, intersection patrols and seat belt enforcement zones."\nQualters said intersection patrols consist of officers stationed near an intersection who walk into traffic when drivers are stopped by a red light. The officers then check to make sure passengers in the stopped vehicles are wearing their seat belts.\nIUPD Sgt. Tim Lewis said Operation Pullover reminds young drivers there is more at risk than death when they drive unsafely or under the influence.\n"They can lose their vehicle, incur fines or incarceration," Lewis said. "We know from national statistics that seat belts do save lives."\nTuesday, the IUPD and BPD set up a seat belt enforcement zone near Atwater Avenue and Woodlawn Ave. The two agencies wrote a total of 23 tickets in four hours. During the last Blitz, Feb. 5 to March 20, BPD alone wrote a total of 508 tickets.\n"We've participated in Operation Pullover for six or seven years," Qualters said. "Last year we started participating more in seat belt enforcement. There were 130 fewer fatalities last year than the previous year. The state is attributing that to seat belt enforcement."\nThe extra officers and hours used for the beefed up patrols and enforcement zones are being funded by state grants to local police agencies. Four hundred thousand is spent annually on the statewide blitzes, which are usually scheduled around holidays like Memorial Day.\n"We've got two shifts of DUI patrols during this two-week period, and we've got nine four-hour shifts of seat belt, speeding and safety patrols," Lewis said.\nAccording to a report by the National Highway Transportation Safety Association, the percentage of Indiana drivers who buckle up rose from 21.6 percent in 1987 to 62.1 percent in 2000, when the State Supreme Court upheld a law allowing police to ticket motorists for not wearing their seat belts.\nBut in a May 21 report from the National Safety Council (NSC), an independent not-for-profit organization which researches safety issues, Indiana scored a D+ for seatbelt usage. Eighteen other states received Ds and Fs in the NSC's report. NSC president Allan McMillan said the United States lags behind every other developed country in the numbers of citizens using seatbelts.