Police stop 50 drivers across Warwickshire for seatbelt offences

Warwickshire Police officers stopped 50 vehicles across the county for seatbelt offences during a three week campaign.

Five of the offenders were van drivers and all of the offences were committed by males aged over 25 years old.

One child was also found not to be appropriately restrained in a vehicle.

Whilst the aim of the campaign was to educate and raise awareness of the risks of not wearing a seatbelt to encourage the public to always ‘belt up’, there is also an enforcement element.

This provided the opportunity for officers to speak to drivers or passengers and 26 people received verbal advice at the roadside.

A further 24 people received Traffic Offence Reports that could result in a £100 fine. If prosecuted, the maximum fine is £500.

In the same three week period (from June 29 to 12 July 12) officers attended 11 collisions of which seven were slight injury and four were serious injury collisions.

In one of these collisions, a seat belt was not worn and this resulted in a serious injury.

In Warwickshire in the twelve months between April 1 2019 and March 31 2020 one person died and 15 people were seriously injured where seatbelts were not worn.

Inspector Jem Mountford said “The reason wearing a seatbelt is so important is because it reduces your risk of death or serious injury in a collision.

“We will continue to proactively police the county’s roads to educate drivers and passengers and to enforce seatbelt legislation.

“We are also asking the public to make sure their friends, family and colleagues always ‘belt up’. By doing this, you could save their life.”

Although the campaign has ended, officers said they are always on the lookout for people not wearing seatbelts.

Between April 1 2019 and 1 March 31 2020 Warwickshire Police issued 171 fixed penalty notices and driver retraining courses where either the front seat passenger or driver failed to wear a seat belt.