Freehold SADD Chapters Help Lead Teen Safe Driving Summit

An announcement from the Teen Safe Driving Coalition:

Members of the SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) Chapters at Freehold Township and Borough High Schools played a key leadership role at the 2nd annual New Jersey Teen Safe Driving Summit, GDL4U: Good Driving for Life, held earlier this month in Freehold to commemorate Global Youth Traffic Safety Month.

Sponsored by the New Jersey Teen Safe Driving Coalition, a project made possible by a grant from The Allstate Foundation in partnership with the National Safety Council, the Summit is attended by teens 14-16 years of age and their parents, as well as educators and safety advocates from across the state.  The Summit is designed to help teens get the facts about New Jersey’s three-step (permit, probationary license, basic or unrestricted license) Graduated Driver License (GDL) program and learn how to leverage it to build skill and improve their safety.

The Freehold Township and Borough High School SADD Chapters led one of four teen workshops, which ran concurrently with the parent workshop track.  Their focus was on the increased crash risk that results when teen drivers transport teen passengers.  Car crashes are the number one cause of teen (16-20 years of age) death in New Jersey and a teen driver crashes every 10 minutes in the state.  Under NJ’s GDL program, a probationary driver may only transport one passenger unless a parent or guardian is in the vehicle.  Compliance with this provision is critical since a teen driver’s crash risk increases by more than 50 percent with just one other teen in the vehicle. 

The SADD Chapter members also joined with teens and parents in a hands-on demonstration of the dangers of texting while driving as they attempted to steer golf carts, while sending and answering text messages, through a marked course set-up by the New Jersey State Police.  Distraction and inattention are the number one cause of teen crashes in New Jersey and under the state’s GDL program, novice drivers may not use hand-held or hands-free electronic devices. 

In 2010, there were 43,414 crashes in New Jersey involving teens drivers 16-20 years of age and 33 teens (19 drivers and 14 passengers) lost their lives.  While that number is down by more than 50 percent since NJ’s GDL program took effect in 2001, more than 700 teens have died on the state’s roadways in the past decade. 

The SADD Chapter members who participated in the Teen Summit included:  Angela Ryan, Emily Rozansky and Hailee Perez, Freehold Twp. High School; and Megan Crandall and Mikala Cummings, Freehold Borough High School