Starting today, Officer Ken Smith of the Vicksburg Police Department will have an extra job while on patrol. He’ll &#8220be looking for people not wearing safety belts.”

Today, the state’s new primary-offense seat belt law kicked in, meaning motorists may be stopped for not buckling up.

&#8220An infinite number of traffic stops will be made because people are in the habit of not wearing seat belts,” Smith said.

In 2005, 491 wrecks were reported in Warren County, with 17 fatalities, 10 incapacitating injuries and 10 non-incapacitating injuries.

&#8220I hope that this new law will help save lives,” said Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace. &#8220The single most important thing that you can do to prevent death and injury in an automobile accident is to wear your safety belt.”

&#8220I’ve been in law enforcement for 27 years,” he said. &#8220I’ve seen countless wrecks where the person would have walked away if they had been wearing their safety belt.”

About 150 cars passed through one of Vicksburg’s busiest intersections – Clay Street and Mission 66 – in a half hour. Of those, at least a third of the drivers were unrestrained.

&#8220I’ve noticed a small improvement over the last few weeks in people in Vicksburg wearing seat belts, but it could be better,” Smith said. &#8220Maybe this new law will help with that because people aren’t going to want to be pulled over. And we are serious about pulling people over.”

The new law allows an officer to stop a car when a driver, a front seat passenger or any child younger than 8 anywhere in the vehicle is not buckled. The new law carries a maximum fine of $25 per vehicle.

&#8220The new law coincides with the Click it or Ticket campaign,” which is May 22-June 4,” said Sgt. James Walker, a spokesman for the Mississippi Highway Patrol. &#8220In 2005, 931 people died in traffic accidents in Mississippi. We hope to save as many as 100 lives per year with the new law.”

Click it or Ticket is a national campaign that includes more than 12,000 state, local law enforcement and highway safety officials. It aims to crack down on seat belt law violators and reduce highway fatalities. The enforcement campaign consists of safety checkpoints, call back details and saturation patrols.

Gov. Haley Barbour signed the bill in February, making Mississippi the 22nd state to enact the primary seat belt law.

Under the previous state law, an officer could issue a ticket for failure to wear a seat belt, but the officer would need a probable cause, such as speeding, for stopping the vehicle.

Of the 931 wreck fatalities reported in Mississippi in 2005, 573 were related to non-use of restraint devices, according to information from the Mississippi Highway Patrol. They also found that people ages 15 to 24 are least likely to wear safety belts.

According to scientific survey data collected by the MHP, Mississippi has the second lowest safety belt use rate in the nation at 60.8 percent. New Hampshire has no law for safety belts and a use rate of 50 percent. The national safety belt use rate is 82 percent, and the Southeast average is 76.8 percent.

Nearly 62 percent of the U.S. population is now covered by primary laws. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, states that have enacted primary laws on average experienced an 11-percentage point increase in belt use.

According to information from the MHP office, regularly wearing seat belts can drastically reduce fatalities and injuries in highway traffic crashes. When worn correctly, safety belts have proven to reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent, and by 60 percent in pickups, SUVs and mini-vans.

&#8220Based on my observation, wearing the proper restraints does help,” Smith said. &#8220It’s a habit that people should really get in to.”

Nearly one in five Americans still fails to regularly wear a seat belt when driving or riding in motor vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Surface transportation legislation signed into law by the president in August 2005 made $498 million available to states that pass primary enforcement seat belt laws covering all passenger vehicles or states that lack a primary enforcement law, but achieve seat belt use of 85 percent or greater for two consecutive years.

The new Federal Highway Safety Bill brings more than $8 million in incentive funds to Mississippi with the governor’s signing of the bill.