College Station High School students were offered a sobering reminder about the importance of wearing seat belts when coming and going from campus Monday afternoon.

The 2013 Click it or Ticket campaign is officially underway at high school campuses across the state.

Click It or Ticket is a two-week-long program designed to emphasize the ease and cost effectiveness of using a seat belt."

"AgriLife Extension supports the Click It or Ticket campaign and is working in partnership to help promote its positive messages about seat belt use," said Beverly Kellner, AgriLife Extension program specialist-passenger safety at Texas A&M University in College Station.

About one in four vehicles registered in Texas is a pickup truck. And according to a 2011 study conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute, only 80 percent of pickup truck drivers buckle up, as compared with more than 90 percent of regular seat belt users in all other types of vehicles.

“Even though pickups are larger than cars and their owners tend to feel safer in them, they are twice as likely to roll over as passenger cars,” said Kellner.

“Every time I get in the car I think about it and make sure I buckle up.,” said Paige Currie,. “My friend was buckled up when she was in a serious car accident and it’s because of her accident that really gave me a reality check about what if?”

From 2007-2011, 53 percent of the 121,507 passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes were unrestrained. In an effort to improve the odds, students at CS High got to watch a simulator re-enact a rollover accident with two dummies inside who were not buckled up. Students and educators we spoke to say the experience hits close to home.

"No matter what kind of car you are driving in, you need to wear a seatbelt," said Kellner. "If you're ejected you're four times more likely to be killed."

“I mean if you don't wear your seatbelt you can fall out of the windshield and fall out of the windows,” said Paige Currie. "That's just really scary and it's worth it to buckle up."

“It really made me realize how a person can fly out of the car, and it makes you want to buckle up,” said Hanna Polen. “I think teenagers don’t think they’re going to get hurt, and they think just because they’re in a big ol’ king ranch truck then you’re not going to get hurt, but that’s not reality.”