Mississippi Highway Patrol Troop M was out in force during theMemorial Day weekend and recorded more than 100 seat belt ticketsduring their annual Click-It or Ticket campaign.

Troop M Public Affairs Officer Sgt. Rusty Boyd said Troop Missued a grand total of 1,206 citations over the holiday weekend,leading the state in citations.

“We had a very good weekend with the weather we had,” hesaid.

The troop wrote 103 tickets for seat belt violations during theholiday weekend, which started at 6 p.m. Friday and ended atmidnight Monday. They also had 20 child restraint violations.

Many of the tickets were the result of extra patrols andcheckpoints established by troopers who donated their time to helpensure the weekend was safe for travelers.

“We’ve always taken pride in what we do,” Boyd said. “We have agroup of guys here who don’t mind giving up their time to come inand get it done.”

In addition, local troopers in the nine-county region recorded24 arrests for driving under the influence, which is more than anyof the state’s other troops. There were five drug arrests and threeother felony arrests as well.

“We stayed on alert for that,” Boyd said. “We target allviolations because you never know when a small violation will turninto getting an impaired driver off the road.”

Meanwhile, Troop M had no alcohol-related wrecks and nofatalities in 10 collisions on the areas highways and interstates.Troop M recorded the second-lowest number of collisions during theholiday weekend, behind Troop F’s five wrecks. Troop H, whichincludes Hattiesburg, recorded the most accidents with 39.