“The preliminary numbers from this past holiday weekend are truly disturbing from a traffic safety and enforcement perspective,” said Colonel W. Steven Flaherty, Virginia State Police Superintendent. “Virginia is in the midst of its annual Click It or Ticket campaign and yet we still had more than 1,400 adults and children not buckled up while traveling on the road.”The Memorial Day weekend coincided with the nationwide Click It or Ticket campaign, which began Monday, May 21, 2007, and continues through June 3, 2007. During the 2007 holiday weekend, Virginia State Police troopers statewide cited 1,126 safety belt violations and 308 child restraint violations. Virginia’s safety belt usage rate as of May 2007 was 72 percent. The Commonwealth’s 2007 goal for seat belt usage is 82 percent. Through the nationwide Operation C.A.R.E. (Combined Accident Reduction Effort) initiative, Virginia State Police patrolled 348,450 miles of Virginia roadways and assisted 3,819 motorists during the holiday statistical counting period.
The total summonses and/or arrests statewide by state police included 9,654 for speeding, 3,070 for reckless driving, 237 for DUI and 5,243 for other hazardous violations.
The Memorial Day weekend traffic fatalities occurred in the city of Suffolk and the counties of Accomack, Bedford, Culpeper, New Kent, Roanoke and Stafford. Two separate traffic fatalities occurred in both Bedford County and New Kent County. One of the Bedford County crashes claimed the lives of three men. A total of four were killed in the Roanoke County crash. The four fatal motorcycle crashes occurred in Culpeper, New Kent and Stafford counties. The bicyclist was killed in Bedford County. Read more about Virginia Memorial Day Traffic Accidents and Traffic Tickets.