Numerous seat belt violations recorded

By Hanna LoPatin

Daily Staff Reporter

Michigan legislators worked to promote the new seat belt law that went into effect on Friday, but "some people didn't get it," said Ann Arbor Police Department Sgt. Michael Logghe who reported AAPD doled out 98 tickets that day.

Last week Michigan was the 17th state in the country to implement a law that allows officers to pull over cars when either drivers or passengers are not buckled up. Violators can be fined $25. Prior to Friday, an officer could only stop a car for defective equipment or other traffic violations, a seat belt violation was a secondary offense.

"I personally think you're crazy if you don't wear them," Logghe said of seat belts.

But the high numbers recorded in Ann Arbor and the surrounding areas may be because officers were sent out specifically to pull over violators of the new law.

Washtenaw County Sheriff Department Sgt. Anderson Brown - whose jurisdiction does not include the city of Ann Arbor - said the department traffic division sent out two officers to look specifically at seat belt violators. With a zero-tolerance policy, one of those officers logged 52 tickets Friday, Brown said.

Logghe said AAPD encouraged officers to look for and ticket drivers and passengers not wearing seat belts.

But in Oakland County the numbers were not as high. "We have no extra patrols out to enforce" the new law, said Capt. Mike McCabe of the sheriff's office.

Although they do not yet have official records, McCabe said preliminary reports seem to show that seat belt violations were down.

Because the implementation of the law was so highly publicized, McCabe said, "we're finding officers are writing less tickets."

Even though Oakland County did not take special action for the first weekend of the law's implementation, McCabe said the law will "save lives."

Brown is actually less optimistic about the law because "people who don't wear their safety belts are creatures of habit and they'll have to be told more than once."

He said if there is an increase in the existing 70 percent compliance rate - it will be small.

"If it's in the '80s or mid-'70s then we'd be doing well," he said.

Brown said he feels a $25 fine is not enough. "The government is going to have to do more education," he said. "Something on the educational level will really have an impact."

Responding to accusations that the law is an example of the government overstepping its bounds, Logghe said, "sometimes you have to save people from themselves."

Brown said that after 20 years working for the traffic division and seeing people die because they did not wear a seat belt, he believes "it's a good law and I don't think the government is out of line."