To decrease speeding and increase safety belt use, the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department will intensify its traffic safety enforcement efforts during the Summer Heat campaign from July 1 to 17.
“With more officers patrolling, for longer hours during the Summer Heat campaign, we are striving to get drivers to comply voluntarily with the posted speed limits and to buckle up,†said Sheriff David Beth. “Our goal is not to issue more traffic citations. Our goal is to reduce the number of traffic deaths in Kenosha County. If people traveling in our county refuse to comply with speed limits and safety belt use, deputies will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action.â€
According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, speeding is prevalent and deadly on roadways throughout the state. During the last five years, speed-related crashes on average have killed 231 people and injured more than 10,000 annually. There were more than 200,000 speeding convictions in Wisconsin last year. There also were nearly 120,000 convictions last year for failure to fasten safety belts, which was an all-time high and second only to speeding convictions. In Wisconsin, about one out of five motorists does not buckle up. Wisconsin’s safety belt use rate of 79 percent lags behind the 85 percent national average for safety belt use.
The Sheriff’s Department received a federal grant, administered by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, to fund additional enforcement of traffic violations in order to help ensure the safety of our motoring public.
