Health and safety of the state’s youngest road users is still of upmost importance for groups like Teens in the Driver Seat (TDS) and General Motors whose partnership began in 2019.
In 2018, 3,370 people were killed in a crash involving a teen driver (15 to 19), and motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death for U.S. teens.
“Teen drivers today face more challenges behind the wheel today than ever before,” explains TDS founder Russell Henk, a senior research engineer and manager of TTI’s Youth Transportation Safety Program. “Smartphones, parties in the back seat, the glamourized ‘need for speed,’ and peer pressure to drive while under the influence are just a handful of dangers they face. But they can also make good decisions with the right information. Giving them that information and rewarding responsible behavior is what TDS is all about.”
Thanks to a generous grant from General Motors, TDS is offering its safety program free to all high schools in Arizona, California, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Tennessee. TDS will ship school’s an educational toolkit with posters, banners, and yard-signs for campus outreach, and offer access to their virtual learning resources for use in- and outside the classroom – all for free.
Virtual resources include educational videos, Google classroom exercises, trivia, and more. They were created to motivate teens to drive more safely by making them aware of the five most dangerous teen driving habits: driving at night; speeding and street racing; distractions, such as cell phones and teen passengers; not wearing a seat belt; and alcohol/drug use.
In addition to signing up for Teens in the Driver Seat, each active school may participate in the cash reward program, TDS All-Stars. TDS does not intend for this to feel like more work, but instead a plug-and-play program that helps teens develop safer driving habits.
TDS is now accepting sign-ups. Interested schools sign-up at: https://www.t-driver.com/order-form-online-access/
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