DOT seatbelt sign Public safety officials today are launching another campaign to encourage motorists to buckle-up. Authorities say the special Traffic Enforcement Program, or sTEP, involves the Iowa DOT and more 200 law enforcement agencies.

This is the fifth of six planned sTEP campaigns this year. Electronic signs posted above interstates flash "click it or ticket – seat belts save lives." Law enforcement officials, meanwhile, say they’ll be looking for and issuing citations to motorists that are not buckled up.

The campaign runs through the Labor Day weekend. Authorities claim since Iowa’s seat belt law was signed in 1986, more than 58-hundred people involved in Iowa traffic crashes have avoided death or serious injury because they wore a seat belt.


Audio: Radio Iowa’s Pat Curtis reports. :43 MP3