Buckle Up for Click It or Ticket campaign

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Andrew Lucas likely won’t forget what proved to be anything but a recent routine drive home.

“A few weeks ago, I was on my way home after work at the YMCA in Youngstown. I was on [Interstate] 680 and a car merged in front of mine,” the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center 11th-grader remembered. “I flipped two or three times and landed on my wheels. It’s a miracle I landed like that.”

You might be tempted to view as a miracle the fact that Lucas, 17, walked away relatively unscathed with little more than whiplash. But ask the teen about how he survived the terrifying experience and he’ll probably tell you it was the result of something he had taken mere seconds to do beforehand: buckling up.

“A seat belt saved my life,” Lucas said while sharing his story during a news conference Sunday at the Four Seasons Flea & Farm Market, 3000 McCartney Road on the East Side, to kick off a Click It or Ticket campaign.

The effort runs today through June 2 to remind drivers to always wear seat belts. That’s especially critical during the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, which typically sees an increase in the number of vehicles on the road, noted Susan Viars, project director with the National Safety Council Ohio Chapter.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.