Thursday, July 01, 1999
Buckle up, win chance at big bucks
State police begin seat-belt thank-you effort
BY MOLLY HARPER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Starting Friday, Kentucky State Police will begin issuing tickets with an unexpected message on them: Thank you.
As the “Buckle for Bucks” program kicks off this week, troopers will issue “Thank You Tickets” to drivers who are found wearing their seat belts at checkpoints throughout the area.
The tickets can be filled out and mailed back to the KSP until February, when they will be put into a drawing for cash prizes. First place is worth $3,000, second is $2,000 and third is $1,000. Lieutenant Kevin Payne of the state police public affairs department said troopers won't be specifically seeking out and pulling over seat-belt wearers.
“The best example I can give is if I'm in a parking lot and see a family pulling in and they all have their seats belts on, I'll issue the thank-you ticket,” Lt. Payne said. “I wouldn't pull a person over specifically because I see they're wearing seat belts, but if I pull them over for something else, I would.”
People who are found at the checkpoints or pulled over with out a seat belt on will get ticket. Normally, a seat-belt citation is a secondary offense tacked onto another citation such as speeding and costs $25. Trooper Curtis Finley said the seat-belt citation alone now can cost around $72.
The 2-year-old program was initiated to try to remedy the low percentage of drivers in Kentucky who wear seat belts. At 54 percent, the state is well below the national average of 70 percent.
“We're trying to do something positive to increase seat belt usage,” Trooper Finley said. “We hope that rewards will cause word of mouth and encourage people to buckle up.”
But National Motorists Association President James Baxter said he is skeptical. He said he's never heard of a program such as “Buckle For Bucks,” and though his organization encourages positive reinforcement of traffic laws, he doubts its effectiveness.
“This will encourage people who either regularly wear their seat belts or intermittently wear them to keep using them,” he said. “But this is on such a small scale, I don't think it will make people who for whatever reason don't wear seat belts suddenly change their ways.”
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