St. Helens Police Join Statewide Efforts to Encourage Safe Driving

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 2, 2019

ST. HELENS, OR – Motor vehicle crashes are the leading nationwide cause of death for children ages one through twelve years old. According to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), proper car seat use can reduce the risk of fatal injury by 71 percent for infants and by 54 percent for toddlers in passenger cars.

The St. Helens Police Department is joining law enforcement agencies across Oregon to use federally funded overtime to educate the public about safety belt and child seat laws, including a law passed in 2017 that increases safety for children under age two.

Beginning Monday, August 5 and extending through September 1, St. Helens officers will be conducting extra safety belt and child restraint enforcement thanks to additional funding from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) Safety Division. The focus during this saturated patrol period will be to increase St. Helens road safety, both day and night, through the enforcement of safety belt and child restraint use, as well as distracted driving rules (texting and cell phone use), and obeying the speed limit.

ODOT crash data from 2017 shows that a lack of proper safety belt or child restraint use was a factor in 22 percent of motor vehicle occupant fatalities. In Oregon traffic crashes in 2017, 1,898 children under the ages of 12 were injured.

In 2017, an Oregon law was passed requiring children to ride in a rear-facing safety seat until they are at least two years old. The recent law better protects a child’s head, neck, and spine from potential crash injuries. This is because a rear-facing seat spreads crash forces evenly across the seat and child’s body while also limiting forward or sideways motion of the head.

St. Helens officers will also be partnering with the Oregon State Police during the 2019 Hood to Coast and Portland to Coast relay races on August 23-24. Officers will be focusing on the “FATAL 5” during the race weekend, which includes DUII, distracted driving, speed, occupant safety, and lane safety. Saturated police patrols will focus on keeping people safe with the large influx of vehicles on Columbia County’s highways that historically bring higher occurrences of distracted driving, general disregard for traffic laws, crashes, fatigued drivers, DUII drivers, and road rage incidents.

“St. Helens officers will be on the lookout for drivers in non-compliance with the law,” said St. Helens Sgt. Jose Castilleja. “The primary goal during these blitz periods is to keep our community safe. There will be zero tolerance for violations encountered during blitz periods. We want to help prevent children and adults from being injured in circumstances that are easily avoidable. Wear your seatbelt and place your children in a proper safety seat. Don’t use your mobile devices while driving. Put it in the glovebox if you need to or turn it off. Be aware of the speed limit, especially near school zones now that school will be starting again soon.”

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For further information regarding the August 2019 safety blitzes, please contact Sgt. Jose Castilleja at 503-397-1521 or josec@ci.st-helens.or.us.