The Tennessee Highway Patrol will join the Governor’s Highway Safety Office and law enforcement agencies across the state and country for the 2011 Click It or Ticket enforcement campaign, May 23 through June 5.

This initiative includes the Memorial Day holiday weekend and urges all drivers and passengers to wear their seat belts – both day and night.

“The nationwide Click it or Ticket campaign is especially important during the summer holiday travel season,” said Department of Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

“Hopefully, the high-visibility enforcement efforts of the Tennessee Highway Patrol will remind motorists to always buckle up. It will save them the cost of a ticket and maybe even their lives.”

The 2011 Memorial Day holiday period begins at 6 p.m., Friday May 27, and will end at 11:59 p.m., Monday, May 30.

Thirteen people were killed on Tennessee roadways during the 2010 Memorial Day holiday weekend. 

That’s down from 16 fatalities in 2009.   Last year, alcohol was involved in none of the fatal crashes, but 50 percent of the vehicle occupants killed were not wearing seat belts. During the 78-hour holiday time period, one pedestrian and two motorcyclists were killed.

Preliminary figures show that 1,030 people were killed on Tennessee roadways in 2010. 

Of the 787 people killed in passenger vehicle crashes, more than half of them were not wearing seat belts. 

Of the 355 killed during nighttime hours, 59 percent (211) were unrestrained. Among the 432 killed during the day, 49 percent (212) were unrestrained.