Local and state officials gathered at Clarendon College Monday morning to launch the seventh annual Click It or Ticket campaign, which promotes the use of safety belts and child car restraints.
CC instructor Melissa McCoy delivered the most poignant remarks from the dais, saying of buckling your seatbelt, “It’s not just a habit; it’s survival.”
McCoy’s Honda Pilot SUV went off US 287 about 15 miles east of Claude on December 5 of last year. The vehicle jumped a creek, flipped forward on its nose, rolled several times, and came to rest on its top. She had to be extracted with the Jaws of Life and then spent many days in the hospital in a long and uncertain recovery.
“It’s an honor to be here… literally,” she began Monday. “I would not be here if it weren’t for my seatbelt. Without that seatbelt I wouldn’t just be dead. I’d be what my family calls ‘messy dead’ – the kind of dead they can’t use photos to identify you.”
As it was, she suffered numerous injuries – including injuries to both sides of her brain – and had to have her spleen removed “without my permission because I wasn’t awake to say it was okay,” she said.
McCoy says she’s grateful for the chance at life her seatbelt gave her.
“I have two kids. I’m not done yet. I’m not ready to leave.”
The Click It or Ticket campaign features enhanced publicity coupled with stepped-up law enforcement from May 19 to June 1 with special attention to the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
State law requires drivers, front seat passengers and children under 17, whether in the front or back seat, to be buckled up. Safety seats must also be used for children under the age of five and less than 36 inches tall.
Failure to comply with the law can result in fines from $25 up to $200, and the tickets can even be written to passengers over the age of 15.
Department of Public Safety Trooper Dan Hawthorne said the typical ticket for a seatbelt violation is between $150 and $200, and he said this campaign is particularly important in the Panhandle where rollovers account for 60 percent of traffic accidents.
Each speaker Monday added a personal touch to the Click It campaign – from CC President Bill Auvenshine, whose granddaughter recently admonished him to buckle up, to Texas Transportation Commissioner Fred Underwood, whose daughter unbuckled her seatbelt one half mile from her destination in Lubbock and now has a titanium plate in her face and no sensation on one side of her body after her vehicle was hit from the side and rolled 135 yards, smashing her head into the pavement repeatedly and breaking her hips open.
Her passenger, who remained buckled up, had a sore shoulder.
Dr. John Howard of the Clarendon Family Medical Center also added personal experience to the campaign. As a naval flight surgeon he learned the importance of buckling up.
“You don’t fly an F-15 without strapping in,” Howard said. “There is value to being strapped to your seat when you’re inverted.”
Last year, Howard’s son was driving to Pampa when wind blew his pickup off the road and rolled it several times. All four occupants were buckled up, and all four walked away even though the pickup was totaled.
The Texas Department of Transportation says safety belt usage has risen from 76 percent in 2002 to more than 92 percent today.
However passengers are less likely to buckle up, particularly in pickup trucks, even though survival rates are significantly higher for people who use seat belts.
State Rep. Warren Chisum encouraged people to buckle up and said a one percent increase in the seat belt usage rate would mean 25 people wouldn’t lose their lives on Texas highways.
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