By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON April 26, 2012 Halton Regional Police Service have now concluded their Spring Seatbelt Campaign, which ran from April 14 to 22nd. The Halton Hills community got top prize for not buckling up.. Police issued 121 warnings and 103 tickets – which are not cheap if you fail to convince a judge that the police officer got it wrong.
Burlington, that city everyone will tell you is the 2nd best Canadian city to live in, got 22 warnings and 32 tickets issued. Traffic court is going to be quieter down here.
During the campaign the Service utilized a multi-faceted approach assigning all three District Response Units, uniform patrol officers and volunteers to both educate and enforce the importance of the proper use of seatbelts, child car seats and child booster seats.
If you're unfortunate enough to be in an accident - the seat belt will save your life..
During the year the Service focuses on traffic safety through enforcement, education and liaising with our municipalities on engineering issues. Halton typically demonstrates a high seat belt compliance rate, however there are still those who opt to risk their safety, risk their lives by not buckling up.
Chief Gary Crowell remarked, “our Police Service is committed to enhancing road safety and we will continue to educate and enforce seat belt compliance in an effort to reduce personal injury and fatal motor vehicle collisions.”
A total of 198 provincial offence notices were issued in all of Halton during the campaign.
Oakville came in with 43 warnings and 63 tickets.
I wonder if the police department could have checked for hand held telephone use as well as missing seatbelt while they were looking closely at the cars! Sort of a “2 for 1” deal for them. There are still way too many people with handheld phones driving around in our city. Smarten up burlingtonians.