As a precursor to the upcoming Click it or Ticket campaign, the Picayune Police Department rewarded high school students for wearing their seatbelts.

On Monday and Tuesday, Picayune police officers and members of the Picayune High School Security Council conducted “stops” on students leaving the school parking lot who were wearing their seatbelts.

As each “caught” student pulled over, it was evident in their demeanor and facial expressions that they thought they were in trouble. However, once security council members Katrina Jones, Reba Shoemake and Alex Parker gave those students wearing seatbelts a coupon for a free snowball, most drove away happy. On the coupon were the words “You got caught Buckled up”.

Lt. Chad Dorn said the effort was a way to impress on students the importance of wearing their seatbelts. He said the number one cause of death in teenage drivers is traffic accidents. Most of those deaths involve teenagers who were not wearing their seatbelt.

“We want to reward these kids for making the right choice in wearing a seatbelt,” Dorn said.

As the officers looked for students wearing their seatbelts, they also looked for those not wearing their seatbelts. Those who were not wearing seatbelts were asked to do so. Next week the department will begin issuing citations for students not wearing seatbelts.

Between the two days this week, the department and security council handed out about 100 coupons for small snowballs at Granny G’s.