ShawneeDispatch.com

Drivers in Johnson County are warned to be alert to heightened traffic enforcement beginning Monday.

Additional officers of the Shawnee Police Department will be placed on the roadways to aggressively enforce Kansas occupant restraint and other traffic laws.

Supported by a grant from the Kansas Department of Transportation, the officers will be participating in the Kansas Click It or Ticket enforcement campaign through June 1, including strict enforcement of the Safety Belt Use and Child Passenger Safety Acts. These acts specify that all front-seat passengers must be buckled in and that vehicles may be stopped if a person under the age of 18 is observed unrestrained anywhere in the vehicle.

The driver will be cited if a passenger under the age of 14 is unrestrained. Unrestrained drivers and passengers ages 14 through 17 also will be cited. Children under the age of 4 must be secured in a federally approved child safety seat; children 4-7 must be securely belted in to an approved booster seat. In addition, the act prohibits persons under the age of 14 from riding in any part of a vehicle not intended for carrying passengers, such as a pickup bed.

The Shawnee Police Department is among 130 law enforcement agencies statewide, including the Kansas Highway Patrol, participating in Click It or Ticket. The aim is to drastically reduce the number of preventable deaths and injuries that occur when unbelted drivers and passengers are involved in traffic crashes. According to KDOT, traffic crashes last year claimed the lives of 414 people, and about 70 percent of those who died were not belted in. By contrast, almost 90 percent of those not injured were using seat belts.