Penn Police campaign for seatbelt safety

As part of a statewide safety campaign, University Police have received a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation grant to encourage the use of seat belts.

The $7,700 grant will pay for increased enforcement during four key times in the next year as well as a high-visibility poster campaign.

"With so many cars on the highway, the risk of an accident is very high," said Penn Police Chief Thomas Rambo, echoing the common knowledge that seat belts significantly decrease the chances of dying in an auto accident.

But in the University City area, according to Rambo, just more than half of drivers and passengers use their seat belts.

"Only 50 to 55 percent currently use safety belts," Rambo said, citing a University Police survey conducted last month. "Our goal is to increase the safety belt usage to about 73 percent."

To that end, Penn Police will be joining scores of departments across Pennsylvania, including Temple University's police department and the Philadelphia Police Department, in a campaign PennDOT calls "Buckle Up Pennsylvania."

"Overall, we feel that the program is working," said Diana Reed, a spokeswoman for PennDOT. "The police seem to be very excited about it and we are seeing an increase in seat belt use in the majority of the departments participating."

In Montgomery Township, where many of Penn's faculty live, just over half of car occupants wore safety belts prior to a November 2000 enforcement effort. After the wave, seat belt use increased to just over 60 percent.

After another Montgomery enforcement drive in May of this year, seatbelt use remained over 60 percent.

Of the nearly $8,000 each department gets, $6,000 is earmarked to cover costs incurred in the four enforcement waves.

During those times, traffic patrols will be more vigilant in giving warnings and citations to those vehicles in which a passenger or driver is unbuckled.

"We just did the Labor Day wave," Rambo said. "The next wave will be in November during the Thanksgiving holiday week."

The other two enforcement waves will occur in February and May.

"The waves consist of [a] pre-seatbelt use survey, educational activities, enforcement activities and [a] post-seatbelt use survey," Reed said.

According to Rambo, Penn Police are in the process of evaluating the effectiveness of their first enforcement wave.

To conduct the survey, police officers are assigned to stand at a particular location and visually observe whether the occupants of passing cars are wearing their seat belts.

For the educational component of the program, Rambo said, Penn will use $1,000 of the grant to initially put up signs throughout campus parking lots, with different projects to follow.

"The signage is the first educational piece," Rambo said. "We'll be developing other methods for getting this message out."

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