CITY OF JOHNSON CITY
JOHNSON CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT
NEWS RELEASE
Prepared By: | Lt. Larry Williams | Date: | April 07, 2014 | Time: | 4:30 PM |
Subject: | Safety Restraint Compliance Campaign | Approved By: | Major Karl Turner |
The Johnson City Police Department is initiating a city wide Selective Traffic Enforcement campaign in an effort to raise the public’s compliance of safety restraint usage and educate motorists of the critical safety issues involving unrestrained occupants.
Saturation patrols will be used in areas with high traffic volume and all patrol officers will be directing their attention toward vehicle occupants not in compliance with the law. This campaign is part of efforts to promote compliance with this law and reduce personal injury and fatal crashes.
According to information provided by the research planning and development division within the Tennessee Highway Patrol and Homeland Security, Washington County, Tennessee ranks among the highest rate of traffic fatalities involving “unrestrained” occupants for the calendar year 2013. The JCPD wants the public to be aware of the increased risks of injury or death associated with not wearing a seatbelt.
Safety restraint usage has statistically shown considerable reduction in fatal crashes as well as a reduction in all injury crashes. The general public needs to aware that you can be seriously injured or receive fatal injuries from collisions as low as 20 mph if unrestrained. There is a huge amount of energy forces acting on vehicle occupants during a collision and the safety restraint system works as designed to decrease the damage caused from these forces.
The major goal for this proactive enforcement campaign is to increase voluntary compliance with the seat belt law and to reduce personal injury and fatal crashes.