Students Advocate For Safer Driving

Schools Boost Peer Initiatives

Southern Maryland school systems are ramping up student safe-driving awareness with students' help.

Although the 2008-09 school year had fewer fatal crashes than the previous year, school and traffic safety officials say the safe-driving programs initiated after five teenagers were killed in the 2007-08 school year will continue.

The five teens died in crashes in 2007 and 2008 in St. Mary's County. In 2009, one Chopticon graduate was killed shortly after graduation, said Jackie Beckman, coordinator of St. Mary's highway safety programs. The year's statistics are not final, Beckman said.

Beckman's organization is offering $200 grants this year to student governments that have proposals to raise awareness in their schools, such as through pamphlets at football games, morning announcements and poster competitions, she said.

"We want to start the year off right. We are safe, and we are going to keep that message all year long," Beckman said. "We aren't doing it in memory of someone. We are [promoting driver awareness] all year long."

Encouraging student involvement is one way to build upon the five-point Young Drivers Safety Program the St. Mary's school system started last year, said Michael Wyant, supervisor of school safety and security.

To get a parking permit at school, students must sign a contract with their parents and school administrators promising to be safe drivers. In addition, students will get a discount on the parking permit if they enroll in a program in which law enforcement officials contact their parents if students break driving laws, Wyant said. Students who are unsafe drivers can lose their parking permit.

"We do and we have revoked a parking permit for driving behavior," said Wyant, who listed speeding, spinning wheels and crashes as factors for revoking a permit. Calvert and Charles counties have similar programs.

Last year, some 6,000 middle and high school students participated in safe-driving assemblies and about 650 signed safe-driving contracts, he said.

In Calvert County, there were four deaths in three crashes in 2007 that involved a young driver, said Debbie Jennings, coordinator of Calvert County's Comprehensive Traffic Safety Programs. Two involved alcohol.

This year, there were three fatal crashes involving two young drivers in Calvert.

Jennings, deputies and others work throughout the year to raise safe-driving awareness, she said. Grants from the Maryland Highway Safety Office allow the county to put more officers on the street to enforce safe driving habits among teenagers. There also is the Alive at 25 program in which the court system sends some teenagers who are ticketed to learn about at-risk driving behaviors.