Published on Tuesday, June 28, 2005
in the Ft. Myers News-Press

'Click It' campaign yields 37,000 tickets

A statewide campaign to make sure people are buckled up while in a car resulted in almost 37,000 citations, including more than 1,000 in Lee and Collier counties, authorities said.

The Florida Department of Transportation tallied the tickets issued in Florida between May 23 and June 5, when law enforcement agencies across the state targeted unsafe drivers.

Some 109,139 citations were issued, including 1,900 to impaired drivers. Officers also made 3,048 felony arrests and 3,148 fugitive arrests, officials said.

"Not only did Florida's law enforcement compel more motorists to use their safety belts, but impaired drivers were taken off our roadways, felons were arrested and fugitives were apprehended," Carla Sims, FDOT administrator, said in a statement Monday.

In Lee County, one special operations team with the Florida Highway Patrol wrote 741 tickets during the Click It or Ticket campaign, including 433 citations to speeders, eight to aggressive drivers and 39 to seat belt or child-restraint violators.

Every year, some 500,000 people are involved in traffic crashes in Florida, according to Buckle Up Florida, an FDOT program. Of those who don't use a seat belt, about 50 percent are killed or injured, officials said.

The safety belt usage rate in Florida is 75 percent, leaving a quarter of residents at risk, Buckle Up officials said.

"Many times we see where people are actually killed or badly hurt and it appears they wouldn't have been if they'd had a seat belt on," said FHP Lt. John Donovan.

Seat belt violations are a secondary offense in Florida, meaning a ticket can be issued only after a motorist is pulled over for another primary offense, such as speeding or reckless driving.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office estimates officers wrote about 200 citations during the campaign while Collier County deputies reported issuing 1,758 tickets for safety belt violations and 169 tickets for child-restraint violations.

The FHP's Community Enforcement Response Team, a group of ticket-writing troopers formed to target reckless drivers, has written 5,326 citations since March 4 when it was formed in response to Lee County's high traffic fatality rate.

In the three weeks since the Click It or Ticket campaign, CERT troopers have written an additional 1,300 tickets and plan to team with Broward over the July 4 weekend to prowl Alligator Alley for unsafe drivers.

"The only thing people understand is tickets, points and how much it's going to cost," said FHP Sgt. Daniel Taylor.

"We believe in zero tolerance on the road and people need to understand that when they get stopped, they're going to get tickets."