Minnesota Law enforcement hands out 1,164 citations during Click It or Ticket campaign

MOORHEAD, Minn. (KVRR) – Minnesota Law enforcement agencies brought awareness to seat belt use by running the Click It or Ticket campaign.

Michael Hanson, Minnesota Department of Public Safety Director says, “What we do is a couple of times over the course of the year we will focus our enforcement efforts on those seat belt and occupant restraint violations that occur out there now thankfully they’re getting fewer and fewer as more people have learned the law and come compliant with it.”

During the one-week Campaign which ran from September 17th to 23rd. 278 Minnesota law enforcement agencies issued 1,125 seat belt citations and 39 child restraint citations.

“Roughly a third of all fatalities are the direct result of somebody not having that seatbelt on and so even though in Minnesota our compliance rate is 94 percent the fact that 6 percent or 6 and a half percent of folks who haven’t figured out how to take 2 seconds to put that seatbelt on they are represented in a third of our fatalities,” stated Hanson.

The area with the most seat belt citations being Detroit lakes with 87 and golden Valley tallied the most Child restraint citations with 4 of the states 39.

Moorhead had 10 seat belt citations and 0 child restraint citations.

“And really the whole idea of it is to continue to raise the awareness of the need for everybody to make what is really the smartest decision that any of us can make when we get in the car and that’s to put the seat belt on,” said Hanson.

In 2023 there have been 57 unbelted deaths recorded.

There were 61 in all of 2022.