Clark County Commissioner Lawrence Weekly puts a “Try to restrain yourself” bumper sticker on a county vehicle at the press conference marking the start of the annual Click It or Ticket seat belt campaign Friday.
Saturday, May 22, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.
Beyond the Sun
Southern Nevada law enforcement officials are preparing to kick off the annual Click It or Ticket campaign to remind people to buckle up when in the car.
Police officers joined officials from the state Office of Traffic Safety and the UNLV Safe Communities Partnership at a press conference Friday. The education and enforcement campaign begins nationwide Monday and continues to June 6.
Officers will be on the watch for people riding without seat belts for the next two weeks and already have started to remind people about the law with a new bumper-sticker campaign.
The stickers have the words “Try to restrain yourself” over the image of a seat belt and will begin showing up on county, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson vehicles.
Jennifer Stehlar knows how important it is to be belted. A seat belt saved her life twice in 11 months, she said.
“Even after my first car crash in which the seat belt saved my life, I still adamantly believed that having to wear my seat belt was an infringement on my personal freedom,” she said.
At the time, she lived in New York, which, unlike Nevada, has a primary seat belt law, so when she got into the car with her father 11 months after the first accident, he insisted she put her seat belt on because he didn’t want to get a ticket. With a primary law, police can pull over a car solely because the occupants aren’t buckled up.
It was on that trip that their vehicle collided with a distracted teenager driver who made a left turn in front of them. Her father said he looked over and saw her hit the windshield, but her seat belt kept her from being ejected from the car.
“The seat belt that he made me put on, the seat belt I was required to wear by law, saved my life,” Stehlar said.
Now living in Summerlin, Stehlar is advocating for a primary seat belt law in Nevada. Under the current law, police cannot pull someone over for not wearing a seat belt.
But that doesn’t mean that law enforcement officers won’t stop you and give you a ticket for not buckling up.
Metro Police Sgt. David Jacoby said an officer can pull a driver over for any other violation, no matter how small.
An officer can pull you over for having a vanity plate on your front bumper or for having something hanging from the rearview mirror, he said.
“All those things are a reason to pull you over, but they won’t save your life like a seat belt will,” Jacoby said.
Once you have been stopped, police can cite you for not wearing a seat belt.
Metro has a zero-tolerance policy for failing to wear a seat belt, Jacoby said.
Metro, the Nevada Highway Patrol and other local law enforcement agencies will have extra patrols out during the next two weeks.
The highway patrol alone will have officers working nearly 20 extra shifts to watch for seat belt violations, NHP spokeswoman Chelita Rojas said.
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