WPD becomes SAFE campaign partner

The Woodbury Police Department is partnering with the Tennessee Highway Safety Office (THSO) for its annual Seatbelts Are For Everyone (SAFE) campaign. This statewide initiative is designed to increase seatbelt usage and child passenger safety restraint usage through the implementation of occupant-protection programs, public events, and checkpoints throughout local communities across Tennessee. The SAFE campaign begins February 1, 2019, and concludes August 1, 2019.

"If you ask the family members of those unrestrained people who were killed in crashes, they will tell you that they wish their loved one had buckled up," said WPD Chief Lowell Womack. "The bottom line is that seatbelts save lives. If these enforcement crackdowns get people's attention and get them to buckle up, then we have done our job. There is no good excuse for not wearing a seat belt."

2019 will be the sixth year the THSO has sponsored the SAFE campaign. Last year yielded the following results:

• 1,182 child restraint violations

• 13,165 'seat belt citations

• 305 other seat belt enforcement activities

"In 2017, Tennessee's average seatbelt usage rate was 88.51 percent," said THSO Director Vic Donoho. "Last year, the usage rate was 88.77 percent. Through increased education, enforcement, and community involvement, we're striving to achieve 100 percent."

This year, participating agencies will pay special attention to nighttime seatbelt enforcement. Tennessee has seen a disproportionate percentage of unrestrained fatalities between the hours of 6:00 p.m. and 5:59 a.m. Historically, approximately fifty percent of Tennessee's traffic fatalities are unbelted. That percentage increases to nearly sixty when· nighttime crashes are examined.