Buffalo PD reminds drivers to buckle up

Buffalo and Jewett Police Departments and Leon County Sheriff's Department representatives salute their fallen comrades. A 2007 study revealed that of the 254 counties in Texas, Leon County was in the upper third percentile for fatalities in car accidents due to unrestrained occupants. Studies also show that a large percentage of deaths resulting from unbuckled occupants throughout the state involved teenage drivers. This year's statewide "Click It Or Ticket" campaign is geared towards younger drivers, ages 16 to 20.

"Please wear your seatbelt," Buffalo Police Sergeant Craig Jefferson pleads to Leon County teens, "so that we don't have to notify your mom and dad that you've been killed in a car accident."

A Texas law requires any person riding in the front seat(s) of a vehicle to wear their safety harness and any person riding under the age of 17 in the back seat to be buckled in as well. State law also requires that any child under the age of five and less than 36 inches in height must be in a child passenger safety seat system. All violations of Texas seatbelt laws are punishable by a fine of $100 to $200.

"It's not the way that you drive," Sgt. Jefferson reminds teenage and adult drivers alike. "It's the way that the other 50,000 people that pass through Buffalo each day drive."