"This sort of behaviour could result in a completely preventable tragedy occurring on our roads."
Unfortunately, Mr Donnison said, incidents like this were not a rarity in Hawke's Bay.
Police often caught motorists driving with unrestrained children. Parents gave a variety of reasons for this, but usually it was just a matter of inconvenience - like only driving a short distance.
"Unfortunately it's just a blase attitude, for the sake of a second or two," the sergeant said.
"It's incredibly frustrating because we're trying to educate people around the safety. People still have this mindset of 'it won't happen to me'."
In the first six months of this year, the number killed on Hawke's Bay roads had risen above the total for 2016, he said. Now, it stands at 16 - three more than the total number of fatalities for the region last year.
Since 2015, there have been 240 fatalities nationwide in which people were unrestrained. This was a common recurrence through the police's Eastern District - which extends from Gisborne to Central Hawke's Bay.
"The frustrating thing for us is that they're all avoidable", Mr Donnison said. Most crashes were caused by people making little mistakes - from going a couple of kilometres over the speed limit, not putting on their seatbelt, or texting.
During Wednesday's hour-long checkpoint, police issued 14 infringement notices to people not wearing seatbelts and 12 notices to people using mobile phones while driving.
"There were lots of children in the area as school had just finished and these motorists were so focused on their phones that they were completely unaware what was happening around them," he said.
Although police worked to prevent death and serious injury, they could not reduce the harm caused by crashes on their own.
"We are human, so mistakes will happen on our roads.
"It takes just a few seconds to put on your seatbelts and put away your mobile phone, those simple acts could save a life."
"You can't change the behaviour of other road users, but you can make sure you take every step possible to keep safe on our roads.
One positive did come out of the checkpoint - seeing schoolchildren all wearing cycle helmets while biking and setting a good example to the adults in the community about road safety, Mr Donnison said.
"Everyone needs to think about their driving habits and keep 'road safety' at the forefront of their minds every time they hop in a vehicle. Belt up and turn that phone off."