Harnessing the power of their peers is what more than 120,000 teens across the country did during this year’s Act Out Loud program to raise safe driving awareness.
The Allstate Foundation and the National Organizations for Youth Safety sponsor the program, now in its seventh year, to encourage teens to talk openly about the No.1 killer of their friends and peers — car crashes. Students at more than 200 schools took on the challenge to design a t-shirt and a poster, and host a rally focused on some of the primary causes of teen crash fatalities: speeding, lack of seat belt use and teen passengers in the car.
Dubiski Career High School in Grand Prairie, Texas, was selected as the grand prize-winning school and will be awarded $10,000.
Three schools from the contest were selected to receive $2,000 prizes: Royal Palm Beach High School, Cookeville High School in Cookeville, Tenn., and Red Bay High School in Red Bay, Ala.
All participating schools’ rallies were judged based on criteria, including involvement of student body, strength of teen safe driving messages, creativity of activities, and community and school administration involvement.
“Ending the epidemic of teen driving fatalities in our country starts with teens championing this cause with their friends,” said Steve Sorenson, executive vice president at Allstate. “This year’s winning schools went above and beyond to encourage teens to slow down, buckle up and limit distractions from passengers. Focusing on these three simple things can help save lives and help teens enjoy a safe, fun-filled summer.”
Act Out Loud supports Global Youth Traffic Safety Month in May. The program engaged an estimated 2.6 million youth from across the country in peer-to-peer education efforts to address the problem to teen traffic crashes.
For more info., visit www.actoutloud.org.
