'Click It or Ticket' Nets 5,830 Protection Charges in Second Week

    RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 12 Law enforcement officers across
the state ticketed 5,830 drivers and passengers for failure to use seat belts
and/or child safety seats during the second week of the fall "Click It or
Ticket" campaign.

    From Sept. 3-9, officers conducted 1,264 law enforcement activities in
support of "Click It or Ticket," which was launched with a statewide kickoff
event Aug. 27 in Durham.

    Current citation data was reported by law enforcement agencies in each
county and compiled by the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.  During the
second week of the campaign, officers wrote 5,393 seat belt tickets and
437 child passenger safety violations.  Counties with the highest number of
seat belt citations include Wake with 696, Surry with 334, and Mecklenburg and
Wayne counties with 193 each.

    Besides cracking down on seat belt and child passenger safety violators,
officers across the state last week charged 896 motorists with driving while
impaired (DWI).  They discovered a total of 27,146 violations, including
239 drug charges, 21 stolen vehicles, and three fugitives from justice.  The
campaign continues through Sunday, Sept. 16.

    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently credited
"Click It or Ticket" with helping to increase the national seat belt use rate
from 71 percent to 73 percent.  Gains were particularly notable in the South,
where the rate increased from 69 percent to 76 percent following last spring's
regional "Click It or Ticket" campaign.  Eight southeastern states followed
the North Carolina enforcement model, and all increased their belt use.

                               Statewide Totals


                  DWI        Occupant Restraint      Traffic Violations
                 Driving                  Child
    Total         While       Seat       Passenger                Total
   Checkpoints  Impaired      Belt        Safety                  Traffic
   and Patrols  Violations  Violations  Violations   Speeding   Violations

     1,313        941        5,394          457       8,334       24,644
(Aug. 27-Sept. 2)

     1,264        896        5,393          437       8,300       25,959
  (Sept. 3-9)


                       Criminal Violations
                                                           Other
                                Stolen                    Criminal
      Drug           Firearm    Vehicles     Fugitives    Violations
    Violations     Violations  Recovered *   Arrested *     Not Listed

      237              12          9            5            409
      239              23         21            3            925


    Criminal Violations
                                  Total
           Total               Traffic &
         Criminal               Criminal
        Violations             Violations

            658                  25,302
          1,187                  27,146

    *These columns are not counted into overall total of violations