Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, Colorado is kicking off its annual "Click It or Ticket" campaign, cracking down on unbuckled seat belts through June 4.

In conjunction with the nationwide "Click It or Ticket" effort from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Colorado law enforcement and the Department of Transportation (CDOT) are partnering together to educate the public about seat belt laws and then heightening seat belt enforcement over the next week. Just in case you need a refresher on Colorado's seat belt laws (taken directly from CDOT's web site):

• Adults — Colorado has a secondary enforcement law for adult drivers and front-seat passengers. Drivers can be ticketed for violating the seat belt law if they are stopped for another traffic violation.
• Teens — Colorado's Graduated Drivers Licensing (GDL) Law requires all drivers younger than 18 and their passengers, regardless of their age, to wear seat belts. This is a primary enforcement, meaning teens can be pulled over simply for not wearing a seat belt or having passengers without seat belts.
• Children — Colorado's Child Passenger Safety Law is a primary enforcement, meaning the driver can be stopped and ticketed if an officer sees an unrestrained or improperly restrained child younger than 16 in the vehicle.

Fines start at $65, and adults caught with an improperly-restrained child are subject to a minimum fine of $82.

A ticket for being unbuckled is a reminder that seat belts are critical to every person's safety on the road," said Col. Scott Hernandez, chief of the Colorado State Patrol. "We hope the people cited in this enforcement make the positive change to buckle up in the future."

Almost 6,000 unrestrained drivers were cited throughout the state during the same campaign last year. Since Colorado started holding an annual Click It or Ticket campaign in 2002, the state's seat belt use has increased to 85.2 percent, from 72 percent. "Seat belts are the primary solution to prevent the increasing number of passenger vehicle traffic deaths in Colorado," said Darrell Lingk, director of the Office of Transportation Safety at CDOT. "Driving slow or just a short distance doesn't make wearing a seat belt any less important; even crashing at 25 mph is like falling from a second-story window." In 2016 alone, 180 people were killed in Colorado traffic crashes, due to not wearing a seat.