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By: Ginger Schmidt, Content Editor
Distracted driving is a major problem within the US, especially for teen drivers. Around 3,000 people die in vehicular accidents caused by distracted driving each year. Distracted driving not only affects you, but passengers and other drivers. Drive safe for your parents, friends, pets, family, yourself, and other drivers. Think about how a loss or injury could impact those in your life, and the families of other drivers. Here at Foran we drive safely for our peers, friends, family and everyone else on the road. Who do YOU drive safe for ?
This year, Foran High School and The Mane Street Mirror committed to fighting this preventable health epidemic by creating and launching a social media campaign that uses a Positive Community Norming (PCN) framework to address the problem of reckless and distracted driving.
The Just Drive Contest is made possible by NJM Insurance Group and is hosted by Impact Teen Drivers, a national nonprofit organization whose vision is to change the driving culture to one that is distraction-free. ITD works with champions of all ages and backgrounds—from students and teachers to health professionals and first responders—to develop and deliver evidence-based tools and programming to empower good decision-making in the car. Peer-to-peer messaging is a critical component to changing the driving culture. By adopting a PCN framework—one that amplifies the positive behaviors and beliefs of drivers and passengers, rather than focusing on risky behaviors—students can harness the power of perception to cultivate better driving and riding habits among the broader community.
The “Who Do You Drive Safe For” campaign is/was an opportunity for teachers or advisors to engage student leaders in the creation of empowerment strategies and solutions that address reckless and distracted driving. Students leading the effort develop/ed their critical thinking and problem-solving skills through conducting research and building strategic communications, as well as advance/d their technical and creative writing skills.
Throughout this campaign Foran Students shared who they drive safe for and learned about dangerous driving behaviors that may seem minor.
Campaigns will be judged based on content, creativity, effectiveness of messaging, and community engagement. The winning campaigns will be announced in May. Prizes, made possible by NJM Insurance Group, will be awarded to the schools with the best campaigns as follows: First place - $10,000, second place - $7,500, and third place - $5,000.
Thank you for your commitment to make our community safer by helping us stop the number one killer of young people—car crashes. Together, we can engender meaningful behavior change that will save lives not only in this generation of drivers, but also in generations to come.
After reading this, I challenge you to think, who do you drive safe for?
