IUPD enforces safety laws

With Indiana's seat belt compliance rate at 63 percent, police officers from all over are teaming up to increase seat belt use. The IU Police Department is no exception.\n"Every hour someone dies in America simply because they didn't wear their seat belt. Failure to buckle up contributes to more fatalities than any other traffic safety-related behavior," according to an IUPD press release.\nEach year the IUPD is given $5,000 of federal money for participating in a crackdown of seat belt laws, and until Dec. 1 it will be conducting that crackdown.\nThe IUPD breaks the money down into four segments known as "blitzes."\nIUPD Sgt. Tim Lewis explained that each blitz has full time officers that work extra hours dedicated solely to enforcing seat belt laws. Those officers are used for regular patrols and intersection patrols.\nBefore reaching the enforcement zones, IUPD Lt. Jerry Minger said "drivers are given forewarning with signs. Even after seeing those signs, they could buckle up.\nMinger said with all the forewarning, there is not much reason that a driver should get ticketed. He said the only logical reason would be driver inattention -- "the number one cause of accidents."\nOnce a vehicle arrives at an enforcement zone, only the people who are breaking the seat belt laws are inconvenienced. This is done by not stopping the vehicles with passengers who are buckled up. As for the cars with unbuckled passengers, they are motioned out of the way and to the side of the road to keep from obstructing traffic.\nDuring the last blitz that took place during August and September, officers cited 89 non-seat belt wearing commuters. This is in comparison to the 139 total violations during that same period. \nSome of the blitzes are performed by multiple organizations at the same time. Lewis said some of the intersection patrols not only had IU police, but also were operated by Bloomington Police officers at the same time.\nThe groups that are teaming up are the Bloomington Police Department, the IU Police Department, and the Monroe County Sheriff's Department. They are in coordination with the Governor's Council on Impaired and Dangerous Driving and Operation Pull Over. \nOperation Pullover is in the Blitz 29, which focuses on the "Click it or Ticket" program. The program is in conjunction with Operation ABC (America Buckles Up Children) Mobilization. The ABC Mobilization is a nationwide program focused on buckling up drivers and their child passengers.