Garden City Commissioner Cipullo announces that beginning May 18 and ending May 25, the Garden City Police Department will be conducting a high-visibility enforcement campaign of safety belt and child passenger safety laws under the banner "Operation ABC: Mobilizing America to Buckle Up Children." This enforcement effort will include extra patrols, child safety seat inspections, and the issurance of informational pamphlets to local civic associations, schools and motorists.

Operation ABC is a nationwide air bag safety campaign sponsored by the National Safety Council and endorsed by the New York State Governor's Traffic Safety Board and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. During Operation ABC, the Garden City Police Department will be joining forces with law enforcement agencies and safety groups across the country in an effort to send a message to the public that children as well as adults, who are not buckled up properly are increasing their chances of being injured or killed in motor vehicle accidents. Use of child safety seats is the law in all 50 states. Yet, among children age 14 and under who are killed in motor vehicle accidents during 1995 and 1996, 60 to 70 percent were not buckled up. It is estimated that if all children ages 0-4 were correctly buckled in child safety seats, an estimated 500 deaths and over 50,000 injuries could be prevented each year.

In addition to these facts, proper safety restraint use is very important in vehicles equipped with air bags. A recent study concluded that air bags have saved over 2,900 loves, but the deaths of 54 children and 40 adults can be attributed to air bag deployment. Tragically, investigations have indicated that in most of these incidents, the adult or child was improperly restrained or not restrained at all. Commissioner Cipullo stresses that the best way to protect children from the risks that air bags may pose as well as from other crash related injuries, is to properly restrain them in the back seat. Furthermore, crash studies show that if an adult driver is unbelted, 70 percent of the time children riding in that vehicle will be unbelted too. That is why we need primary enforcement seat belt laws to protect adults and the children who travel with them.