The “Click it or ticket” campaign starts today in Lubbock and ends on June 1st. The Commerce Police Department, the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office, The Texas Department of Transportation and the Texas Department of Public Safety, along with Texas law enforcements agencies will join forces to remind drivers and passengers about the importance of safety belts.

According to Greenville Herald-Banner, the law requires drivers, front and back seat passengers and children under 17 to wear safety belts. Those who won’t comply will get a citation with fines from $25 to $200.

TxDOT holds the campaign several times a year, especially during holiday season.

Those who do wear safety belts have a 50 percent better chance of surviving a serious accident and avoiding serious injury. The campaign was, so far, successful since its 2002 start, as the seat belt use increased from 76 percent to 92 percent.

According to the Texas Transportation Institute, despite this increase, only 87 percent of Texas’ passengers use a safety belt. But this number decreases to 79 percent when pickup truck passengers come into question.

According to Lubbock Online, Karen Peoples, regional Texas Department of Transportation traffic safety specialist, said that authorities handle about 800 citations during Click It or Ticket campaigns.

To sustain their point of view regarding the use of safety belts, police officers gave as example an accident where a woman may have survived if she had been wearing a safety belt. Her car plunged off an Interstate-27 access road and she was partially ejected. Given the fact that she wasn’t wearing a seat belt, she died. The three back seat passengers, who were all wearing safety belts, survived.