Students Making a Difference – Promoting safer, smarter driving through Project Ignition

Students from Freehold Township High School were presented with a $2,000 Project Ignition grant from State Farm representatives during a FRHSD school board meeting held at Marlboro High School. Freehold Township High School was selected as one of latest 2013 Project Ignition Top Leader Schools from across the country.  

Freehold Township High School joins eighteen other Project Ignition National Leader Schools already hard at work this school year, expanding on previous teen driver safety campaigns throughout North America. These campaigns continue to impact their schools, communities and in many cases, their states and regions. The 10 most recently named "Project Ignition National Leader Schools" play a special role at the National Service-Learning Conference in the spring of 2013 where they share their work in teen driver safety and inspire others to join the effort.  

Project Ignition, now in its 9^th year, is a student-led teen driver safety program funded by State Farm® and coordinated by the National Youth Leadership Council. It was developed because car crashes are the No. 1 killer of youth. With a little help from Project Ignition, students at Freehold Township High School working to change that devastating reality with their student program, the Patriot Passenger Project that focuses on teen passenger safety.

“As the nation’s No. 1 insurer of vehicles, State Farm makes it a priority to promote teen driver safety through programs like Project Ignition,” says Ed Hocker, State Farm Agent in Freehold. “We believe in the power of young people to make a difference and are happy to join them in promoting teen driver safety.”

Project Ignition, a service-learning competition launched in 2004, is designed to help teens spread their own words of driver safety and win grant money for their schools. Chosen from applicants nationwide, the ten best campaigns of the twenty five will have the opportunity to receive additional funding to support their participation in a national conference or event and go deeper with their campaigns during the 2012-2013 school year. 

Project Ignition is a grant program that utilizes service-learning to address teen driver safety issues through student-led campaigns. — but the ripple effect the program creates is anything but simple. Student teams find their inspiration close to home — sometimes from personal tragedy — but their powerful messages reach across towns, counties, and state lines. Students find amazing and creative ways to bring their messages to life:

• They engage peers and other community members to consider the role they play in teen driver safety issues through school physics projects, interactive demonstrations in school lunch rooms and at community fairs, writing music and poetry and producing public service announcements.
• They meet with city councils and local legislators to encourage stronger public policy surrounding teen driver safety.
• They build Web sites and memory walls. Students galvanize schools and families —even entire communities — around their efforts to keep teen drivers and passengers safe.

Teen drivers (ages 16 to 19) have fatal crashes at four times the rate of adult drivers (ages 25 to 69). State Farm has long been a proponent of education, research and legislation that helps to keep drivers, passengers and pedestrians safe. Working with The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia™ on the Young Driver Research Initiative, and partners like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Youth Leadership Council, Governors Highways Safety Association, the country’s leading auto insurer takes a comprehensive approach to teen safety that includes strong laws, enforcement and education.

Last year, State Farm released survey findings, conducted in February 2012 by Harris Interactive, showing the majority of teens with driver's licenses, 57 percent, admit to texting while driving, despite the widespread attention surrounding the dangers of this risky practice. The study also found that fewer teens view texting as less likely to lead to a fatal accident versus drinking and driving and that parents with teens with driver permits see a sharp decline in safe driving talks once their teen gets a license. However, the first year of driving also brings the highest lifetime crash risk.