PLEASANT POINT – Click your seat belt or get a ticket is a new but temporary Pleasant Point police policy.

And officers are serious.

The department received a grant from the state Bureau of Highway Safety, and on Monday it joined in the national Click It or Ticket program. Police stops will continue through June 3.

Seat belts are required in Maine.

“There was money through the state for overtime to put officers out there specifically to check people and make certain they are wearing their seat belts,” Police Chief Joseph Barnes said Tuesday. This is the first time the Pleasant Point Police Department has participated.

Dover-Foxcroft police are conducting a similar program.

Pleasant Point police officers are patrolling not only back roads on the reservation, but also Route 190, which leads into Eastport.

“As you know, Route 190 splits our reservation right in half, and that’s a big concern for us safetywise because people cross back and forth, with our school being on the other side of the highway,” Barnes said. He said most of the stops will likely be on Route 190. “We will actually do safety checks through this process.”

Barnes said that there would be no notice of when officers would be patrolling.

On the first day, he said, an officer had stopped 13 vehicles. Only one person was not wearing a seat belt.

If you get stopped and are not buckled, be prepared to get a ticket. The fine for failure to use a seat belt is $70 for the first offense, $160 for a second offense and $310 for third and subsequent offenses.