Full Notification

As summer kicks off and families hit the road for vacations, the Goleta Police Department and the California Office of Traffic Safety is reminding motorists to Click It or Ticket. Aimed at enforcing seat belt use to help keep you and your family safe, the National seat belt campaign began on May 22 and continues through June 4, concurrent with one of the busiest travel and holiday weekends of the year.

“Our law enforcement personnel see firsthand the loss of life when people refuse to buckle up,” said Lieutenant Kevin Huddle, Chief of Police Services for the City of Goleta. “It’s such a simple thing, and it should be an automatic next step after sitting down in a vehicle.” As the Memorial Day weekend approaches and the summer vacation season ramps up, “We want to keep our community members safe, and make sure people are doing the one thing that can save them in a crash: buckling up. If the campaign wakes up the hundreds of thousands of Californians who still don’t heed the dangers of unrestrained driving and gets them to buckle up, we’ll consider it a success.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), nearly half of the 22,441 passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes in 2015 were unrestrained. During nighttime hours, that number soared to 57 percent of those killed which is why one focus of the Click It or Ticket campaign is nighttime enforcement. Participating law enforcement agencies will be taking a no-excuses approach to seat belt law enforcement, writing citations day and night. In Goleta, the ticket cost for an adult seat belt violation is $162, with penalties for not restraining a child at $465.

In 2015, 545 Californians died as a result of not being buckled according to the NHTSA. Nationally, almost twice as many males were killed in crashes as compared to females, with lower belt use rates, too. Of the males killed in crashes in 2015, more than half (52%) were unrestrained. For females killed in crashes, (42%) were not buckled up.

“Please, help us spread this life-saving message before one more friend or family member is killed as a result of this senseless inaction,” said Lieutenant Kevin Huddle. “Seat belts save lives, and everyone needs to remember to buckle up, every trip, every time.”

For more information on the Click It or Ticket mobilization, please visit www.nhtsa.gov/ciot

The City of Goleta contracts with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office for police services.