Belt-up! That's the key

Every police officer in the South West is involved in a region-wide operation hunting down drivers and passengers who fail to wear seatbelts.

South West district traffic coordinator Sgt Mark Smith said a shocking number of people involved in serious and fatal crashes in the South West so far this year were not wearing their seatbelt.

‘‘So far this year we’ve had eight serious and eight fatal crashes in the South West,’’ he said.

‘‘Of those non-seatbelt compliance is the highest contributing factor in all of them.’’

He said a staggering 50 per cent of people who died on the region’s roads had not been wearing a seatbelt and three out of the eight involved in the serious crashes also were not wearing seatbelts.

Sgt Smith said that in the majority of these deaths, the motorists would still be alive if they had worn their seatbelt.

‘‘I know it may be upsetting for the families who have lost loved ones to read this statistic — I knowthey will still be trying to come to terms with it themselves but that’s the reality,’’ he said.

He said while there were, at times, other contributing factors to crash deaths and injuries such as speed and alcohol, not wearing a seatbelt ‘‘shines throughout all of them’’.

‘‘In some cases there has been lowspeed and the person has been ejected from the vehicle,’’ he said.

The targeted operation would use a variety of tactics to make sure everyone in a vehicle on a South West road was wearing a seatbelt.

SgtSmith warned thatmarked cars, as well as a variety of unmarked cars, would be used to catch thosewho broke the law.

‘‘It’s going to be an aggressive campaign,’’ he said.

‘‘There’s going to be a notolerance approach taken.’’

Sgt Smith said there had been 288 prosecutions so far this year for not wearing seatbelts and that number was expected to increase after the campaign.

The penalty for not wearing a seatbelt is a $500 fine, but Sgt Smith said for some people, the ramification of not wearing a seatbelt could be their life.