Seat Belts

GLENDALE — The police department will get a $26,045 grant to help pay officers working overtime to conduct additional seat belt enforcement in the city. The City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a grant that will allow the Glendale Police Department’s Traffic Bureau officers to operate extra enforcement checkpoints, where they will be looking for motorists and vehicle passengers who are not wearing seat belts. “Our goal is improving traffic safety,” said Glendale Police Lt. Carl Povilaitis.

GLENDALE — Increased seat-belt enforcement has begun in the city and will continue past Thanksgiving. Glendale Police Department officers began a campaign Monday looking specifically for motorists who were not wearing their seat belts or didn’t have children properly strapped in their seats. “We need people to wear [seat belts],” Glendale Police Lt. Carl Povilaitis said. The increased seat-belt enforcement is part of the California Office of Traffic Safety’s statewide Click it or Ticket campaign, which started Monday and ends Nov. 30. The office awarded 90 law enforcement agencies, including the Glendale and Burbank police departments, with grants to help pay the overtime cost for staffing additional officers to enforce seat-belt laws.

Darleene Barrientos Many major injuries stemming from car accidents could be avoided if passengers wore their seat belts, so California Highway Patrol and Glendale Police will be out in full force during the holidays to enforce safety-restraint laws. With a $35,000 grant from the state Office of Traffic Safety, local law-enforcement agencies want to help drivers enjoy their Thanksgiving holiday by increasing enforcement aimed for people not wearing their seat belts on streets and highways.

Seat belts probably saved the lives of two men Friday afternoon. The men were involved in a collision about 4 p.m. at the intersection of Glenoaks Boulevard and Concord Street. The crash caused one of the men's vehicles, a Ford Explorer, to roll over onto its roof. While the crash and its cleanup drew a crowd, the men were able to walk away because they were wearing their seat belts, Glendale Fire Battalion Chief Bob Doyle said. Neither man suffered injuries in the accident.

Memorial services for Michael Musso, a wide receiver on Orange Coast College's football team, will be held at 10 a.m. today at First Baptist Church of Fountain Valley. Musso, 19, died from injuries sustained following a four-car collision on Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach Friday. Musso was thrown from the GTO in which he was a passenger and died en route to the hospital. Patrick Nance, a former Fountain Valley High teammate of Musso who was reportedly driving the car when the collision occurred, is recovering at Kaiser Hospital in Anaheim.

California Highway Patrol officers will step up their efforts to catch people not using their seat belts and driving under the influence of alcohol during the Labor Day weekend. Statewide, 45 people died during the Fourth of July weekend, according to a CHP news release. More than half of the people killed were not wearing seat belts. During the 2002 Labor Day weekend, 45 people were killed on the roads, while 1,563 people were arrested on suspicion of DUI. The CHP advises people planning to attend a Labor Day party to plan ahead and designate a driver before arriving at the festivities.

Jackson Bell Lewie Guay has seen the gruesome consequences of motorists who don't use their seat belts properly. The Glendale Police Traffic Bureau sergeant recalled a motorist who died about 10 years ago because she did not buckle her lap belt. Even though she was wearing the belt's shoulder strap, she slid underneath it and into the steering column in a head-on collision. To help prevent such tragedies, the Police Department on Monday began a three-week crackdown on those who do not buckle up. "There are still a lot of people not wearing seat belts or wearing seat belts improperly," Guay said.

CHP to look out for drunken drivers GLENDALE -- The California Highway Patrol wants to remind drivers that officers will be watching them this weekend. Many officers will be on duty during the Memorial Day weekend, watching for drunken drivers and drivers and passengers not wearing seat belts, CHP Officer Vince Bell said. And not just in California -- drivers going out of state should make sure their seat belts are fastened because officers across the country will be enforcing those laws during National Buckle-Up America week, he said.

Jackson Bell One of the cutest incidents Glendale Police Sgt. Jim Lowery has seen while on the force started out looking pretty gruesome. Lowery responded to an overturned car that was badly smashed up. He heard that the mother escaped the car unscathed, but did not immediately know the condition of her child, who was also in the car. "I rolled up, and what I saw was a young kid hanging upside down [in the car], safely fastened by his seat belt and completely unharmed," the patrol sergeant said.

A $28.5-million plan to overhaul Glendale’s utility delivery system and bring it into the next consumer era should be welcomed, not feared. Reaction from some residents has been tepid, but only because the so-called “smart grid” technology propagating from one city to the next isn’t fully understood, yet. When recycling campaigns took hold more than a decade ago, the movement relied on a complete reorientation of how people thought about and treated their garbage.

GLENDALE — Police will conduct saturation enforcement patrols in the next two weeks as part of a statewide campaign aimed at increasing seat belt use. About 92% of Glendale motorists wear seat belts, but Glendale police are looking to widen the lead and get more compliance among drivers and their passengers, Police Lt. Carl Povilaitis said. The Police Department was awarded a $3,355-grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety to help them fund its "Click It or Ticket" operations for this campaign period and another in June, he said.

Motorists driving without a seat belt may want to think twice before hitting the road. Glendale Police Department officers will be out in force patrolling the streets this month for people not wearing seat belts while inside a moving vehicle. Using a $28,757 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, the Police Department’s enforcement effort is part of the state’s Click it or Ticket campaign. Seat belt use throughout the state was 95.2% in 2009. Still, public safety officials are pushing to increase that rate.

GLENDALE — State officials have awarded the Glendale and Burbank police departments more than $50,000 to supplement seat belt enforcement efforts. Glendale police received $28,757, and Burbank police got $23,299 to conduct seat belt enforcement as part of the national Click it or Ticket program, which kicked off Tuesday. The California Office of Traffic Safety awarded more than $3 million in grants to law enforcement agencies to spread the word about traffic safety because many people are not wearing seat belts, said Chris Cochran, the state agency’s spokesman.

A $28.5-million plan to overhaul Glendale’s utility delivery system and bring it into the next consumer era should be welcomed, not feared. Reaction from some residents has been tepid, but only because the so-called “smart grid” technology propagating from one city to the next isn’t fully understood, yet. When recycling campaigns took hold more than a decade ago, the movement relied on a complete reorientation of how people thought about and treated their garbage.

An elderly married couple from La Crescenta was killed Tuesday morning after their Ford Explorer slammed into a tree in the 5400 block of Pine Glen Road in La Crescenta. Danette Erickson, a member of the Crescenta Valley Town Council, identified the couple as Charles and Frances Crutchfield of La Crescenta, although authorities would not confirm their names pending notification of family members. California Highway Patrol officer Andre Primeaux said an 84-year-old woman was behind the wheel and her 81-year-old husband was in the passenger seat when the accident occurred at about 9:55 a.m. A witness who was driving his vehicle southbound on Pine Glen Road told officers he noticed the Explorer traveling at a high rate of speed when it passed him on the left before attempting to get back into the correct lane.

BURBANK — Special Response Team officers armed with rifles strapped themselves onto a bench that was attached to the Glendale/Burbank Air Support Unit helicopter as it carried them off onto a landing pad as part of Wednesday morning’s semi-annual training exercises. Officers’ legs dangled in the air as they sat on the exterior “Tyler” Special Weapons and Tactics bench of the helicopter, which lifted off from the Burbank Starlight Mesa landing pads and dropped them off on the rooftop of a building on Glenoaks Boulevard.

GLENDALE — Increased seat-belt enforcement has begun in the city and will continue past Thanksgiving. Glendale Police Department officers began a campaign Monday looking specifically for motorists who were not wearing their seat belts or didn’t have children properly strapped in their seats. “We need people to wear [seat belts],” Glendale Police Lt. Carl Povilaitis said. The increased seat-belt enforcement is part of the California Office of Traffic Safety’s statewide Click it or Ticket campaign, which started Monday and ends Nov. 30. The office awarded 90 law enforcement agencies, including the Glendale and Burbank police departments, with grants to help pay the overtime cost for staffing additional officers to enforce seat-belt laws.

GLENDALE — The police department will get a $26,045 grant to help pay officers working overtime to conduct additional seat belt enforcement in the city. The City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a grant that will allow the Glendale Police Department’s Traffic Bureau officers to operate extra enforcement checkpoints, where they will be looking for motorists and vehicle passengers who are not wearing seat belts. “Our goal is improving traffic safety,” said Glendale Police Lt. Carl Povilaitis.

Hey, you parents out there! How would you like to get sued by your 8-year-old son? That is what is happening in Minneapolis right now. The situation is not as dire as it appears to be, however. On one side is 8-year-old Teddy Harrison. On the other side are his parents, Amy and Ted Harrison. In April of 2001, Amy was driving the family vehicle and was hit by another car. It was a bad accident; the Harrison vehicle rolled numerous times. Young Teddy, 2 years old at the time, was belted into his car seat, as the law requires.

LOS ANGELES — A 31-year-old Burbank woman was seriously injured when she fell 50 feet into the Los Angeles River after she was ejected from her vehicle Friday morning. The incident occurred after a collision on the Colorado Street interchange near the Golden State (5) Freeway. California Highway Patrol Officer Robert Maldonado said the woman, whose name was being withheld, was taken to Huntington Memorial Hospital via ambulance where she was described as being in critical condition Friday afternoon.