Seat belt campaign leads to more than 2,000 tickets in Colorado

Safety took a front seat earlier this month as law enforcement agencies from several counties buckled down on those not wearing seat belts.

The Click It or Ticket enforcement wave resulted in 2,558 seat belt tickets being issued from Oct. 15-21 in 11 Colorado counties. The enforcement wave was spread across Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Douglas, El Paso, Jefferson, Larimer, Mesa, Pueblo and Weld counties, and involved a total of 36 law enforcement agencies.

It was also reported, however, that a total of seven people not wearing seat belts, including a 17-year-old boy from Franktown, died during this time. A total of 50 people died last year who were not wearing seat belts.

Most of the tickets were given to adults. Yet, 296 were for people ages 16-20, 111 were for children ages 6-15, 29 for booster seat infractions for children ages 4-5 and 64 for children under 4 years of age.

Several high schools also collected pledges from students to wear seat belts as part of the event.

Additional Click It or Ticket campaigns are planned for January, March and April of 2008.