December 5, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WETHERSFIELD –  Connecticut’s Safe Teen Driving Awareness Week (Dec. 4-10) is an opportunity for community leaders statewide to organize their area teens around the theme of How A Community Helps to Make Teens Safe Drivers for submitting a video to DMV’s teen safe driving video contest.

DMV sponsors the annual “From the Driver’s Seat to the Director’s Chair” video contest in cooperation with The Travelers Companies, Inc.

DMV is also releasing today a new agreement (see attached) between a teen and adult teaching them to drive. It starts a discussion for every community, every adult involved in a teen driver's training and every young driver before a teen gets behind the wheel. The Commissioner’s Advisory Committee on Teen Safe Driving completed work on it today.

Videos for the contest must illustrate a specific community effort to help prevent crashes, injuries and deaths among 16- and 17-year-olds, who are the state’s youngest and most inexperienced drivers. The deadline for submitting a video is January 13, 2012. Contest information and rules can be found at www.ct.gov/teendriving/contest.

“We think this is just the right week for community leaders to organize many teams of students to enter the contest and showcase the many unique ways their communities help to make them better drivers, “ said DMV Commissioner Melody A. Currey, also former mayor of East Hartford. “The new parent-teen agreement also gives communities as well as parents and teens a good starting point for discussions about safety,” the Commissioner added.

“Connecticut’s Safe Teen Driving Awareness Week serves as a great opportunity to educate teen drivers, parents and the leaders of our community about the importance of being safe behind the wheel,” said Doreen Spadorcia, Executive Vice President & Chief Executive Officer, Claim and Personal Insurance for Travelers. “That’s why Travelers is proud to sponsor the DMV’s Teen Safe Driving Video Contest. We believe it’s a valuable tool that enables teens to speak directly to their peers on the importance of safe driving and how careless driving and heartbreaking accidents can impact their family, school and entire community.”

The new agreement will be placed in the Connecticut driver’s manual for parents and adults involved in a teen driver's training teens to consider using. It sets out issues for discussion and responsibilities of adults and teen drivers. It also has the intentional formality of having both the adult and teen driver sign that they understand the responsibilities and consequences of ignoring them.

Dr. Brendan Campbell, pediatric surgeon and researcher in teen driving matters, said, "We all - parents, police, health care providers and all other safety advocates - need to remain vigilant in our outreach to these youngest of drivers. Communities and agreements like this one can help tremendously in stemming this public health problem of crashes being the leading cause of death among 15-19 year-old teens.” Dr. Campbell is Director of Pediatric Trauma at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford.

Communities play a key role in the development of a teen driver and the promotion of safety. When a teen driver is on the road, his or her actions and decisions can affect an entire community.  Teens and their communities are linked through many connections.  As part of the video contest, student directors need to illustrate how the community shapes young drivers to be safe and responsible.

A community is defined as any group of connected individuals with agreed-upon goals that bring them together.  Community members include families, friends, doctors and other health care professionals, neighbors, educators, law enforcement, lawyers, business owners, and others who share in these goals, such as helping teens to be safe drivers.

Below are examples of videos teens could create, but creativity is strongly encouraged to also represent other kinds of ideas:

Travelers will award a total of $15,000 to five top-ranking videos placing in the contest this year. For the past three years, the contest has awarded prizes and cash awards to the top 3 videos, and hosted an awards event recognizing the top 10 winners. The cash awards go to the high schools of the winning contestants and the money must be used to create teen safe driving programs.

Promotional sponsors of the contest include the Connecticut Police Chief’s Association; the Connecticut State Police; Mourning Parents Act (!MPACT), a bereaved parents group); the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center; Yale-New Haven Hospital; Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center; The Connecticut Association of Schools; the state Department of Public Health; The state Department of Insurance, the state Department of Transportation; the state Division of Criminal Justice and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Connecticut has annually marked its own Safe Teen Driving Awareness week in December for the last several years. It is championed by !MPACT, officially known as Mourning Parents Act, Inc., an organization of families and friends of teens who died in car crashes.