In an effort to reduce the leading cause of death in Delaware County teens, the SAFE Delaware County Coalition along with supporting partners have rallied together to launch a new high school prevention portal aimed at promoting and incentivizing safe-driving activities in high schools throughout Delaware County.
The interactive portal called “Reduce Teen Crashes Delaware County, OH” has a host of purposes, including:
• A place where SAFE partners can provide evidence-based activities related to driver safety and drug and alcohol-use prevention.
• An efficient way to locate and provide consistent prevention messages to students without disrupting curriculum goals.
• Incentivized opportunities that allow for high school students, staff and parents a chance to score points and be recognized for their participation.
• A portal for photos and videos that will be shared on social media platforms to recognize school activities.
After learning about this prevention portal and its success in other states, many community and law enforcement leaders supported this initiative financially, including Delaware County Sheriff Russell Martin, Delaware County Prosecutor Carol O’Brien, and Byers Auto Group Vice President John DuRivage.
“In the last five years, Delaware County has experienced an 85 percent increase in teen deaths caused by motor vehicle crashes compared to the previous five years,” said Lt. Eric Caudill of the Ohio State Highway Patrol Delaware Post. “By providing consistent driver safety messages through this portal, it is our hope that we will see an increase in safe driving behavior in teens as well as a change in the risky driving culture that currently exists.”
The Reduce Teen Crashes portal for Delaware County was created by iCube of Tennessee Tech University. Tennessee Tech University currently provides this portal for the Traffic Safety Office’s for the state of Tennessee and California. Tennessee Tech University plans on expanding the program to include high schools all over Ohio as well as other states.
Learn more at ReduceOHCrashes.com or follow the initiative on Facebook (@Reduce Teen Crashes – Delaware County, OH), Instagram (@reduceteencrashesdelcooh) or Twitter (@ReduceTeenCrash).
