Final Video, Many months in the making

Here is our final video. It's pretty much a collection of everything we have done to raise awareness about driving safety in our school and community. We hope you enjoy it and are inspired to change your own driving habits to make our roads a little safer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK1F3Fn984w

New Drivers, Strong Foundation for Safety

We are also trying to prepare our students for the summer months which are usually the worst time of year for crash and wreckless driving in general. We will be mailing home All-State's Parent-Teen driving contract to the famalies of our sophomore students. These contracts may inspire real conversations between students and their family members about safe driving and help to create a strong foundation for those beginning drivers.

Sheriff Fox and Governor Kaine

We are so grateful to all the support our local and state leaders have shown us. Special thanks to Sheriff Fox of the Fauquier County Sheriff's Department and Governor Timothy M. Kaine who have both commended and supported our efforts throughout this campaign.

What's your number?

The Fauquier County Sheriff's Department allowed us to borrow their speed board and have it placed on the side of the road just outside our parking lot. The board was placed there to make our student/teacher drivers more aware of how fast they are driving through our parking lot which has a posted speed limit of 15 mph. I was a little shocked to see numbers as high as 35 appear on the screen as students drove by. The picture featured here includes two of our YOVASO members Samantha and Chelsea who have been working so hard to help spread the word and riase awareness.

School paper

Once again, our school paper wrote a great article about what we've been up to. Their support has really helped motivate our students.

Getting the word out

We recently struck up a partnership with our Junior SCA (Student Council Association). We'll be working really closely with them to help make sure out juniors and seniors are safe while having fun for Prom. Our Prom is on May 9th and promises to be a memorable event. The SCA has already begun spreading the word by having business cards printed that they sent out to all the local businesses our students might go to or buy things from for Prom. Businesses that sell tuxes, prom dresses and flowers have agreed to make these cards available to students and put them insides packages that leave their store as a reminder to drive safe.

The Junior SCA sponsor also came up with the neatest idea. The Junior class always gives out great gifts at Prom. This year, the are giving away really nice picture frames but the sponsor figured we could add our own safe driving message to the picture insert of the frame instead of the cheesy/fake prom couple pic that comes in the frame. We really hope students will see the message and yet again be reminded of the responsibility and privilege that driving truly is.

Roll Call

Our trip to the Sheriff's office was great! We thanked the officers for keeping Fauquier County's streets safe. They appreciated it tremendously. One of the reasons we did this is to strengthen our relationship with the deputies. Many of the deputies will be helping us by donating their time and skills to our Safety Saturday event on May 16th. This means a lot to YOVASO to do everything we can to help to help all the people on the roads in our county and beyond.--Kerry

Gearing Up

It's crazy busy getting ready for NYTSM. We've been trying to get the word out in our school and community. We recently hung up posters around the school and are trying to get local business to post them on their walls or in their windows. We also gave each teacher a NYTSM planning calendar to hang in their classrooms. I know how I am. I always need to check the date for something, even if it's just counting how many days left in the school year. So we thought the calendars would be a good attention getter. We also tried to pick great spots for the posters where people might actually take the time to read them. Next week is our Memory wall and Chain of Life activity. Wish us luck. We're hoping a lot of students will sign our safe driving pledge.

More local press

We were honored with a brief article in the April issue of Discover Fauquier Values.

Local Press

We were recently featured in our local paper, The Fauquier Times Democrat. The article helps us to spread the word and get the community involved. We're also going to try to put posters in local businesses to raise awarness.

Restrictions on Teen Drivers

I'm Amanda Mills and I've been a YOVASO member fortwo years now. I think it's good that we have specific laws for teen drivers. If teens didn't have rules to follow, there would be a lot more fatal crashes. A teen only being allowed to have one passenger in the car is good because it won't distract the driver. Cell phones and radios are also a huge distraction for young drivers. If they take their eyes and attention off driving, they could esily cause a crash. You might have been expecting me to say accident, but our YOVASO leaders have taught us to call them crashes because they're not really accidents because they are preventable and predictable.

A lot of teens don't realize how easy it is to get into a crash and how serious it can be. One mistake could make you loose your life, or end someone else's life. I always try to remember that we loose 14 teens a day, 415 a month, and 5,000 a year to car crashes. There are so many distractions in a car, by eliminating a few you can save lives. Thanks for listening, but more importantly you need to Do your part! Drive Smart!!

Second grade Visit

Hey everybody! This is Morgan Thomas. I just wanted to take a minute to tell you about our elementary school visit just before spring break. We are lucky enough to have an elementary school right next door to our school and they were kind enough to allow us to visit and talk with the 2nd graders about safety. It was a ton of fun! I think it was really productive. All the kids participated and absolutely loved to raise their hands in hopes of being the one to tell us the right answer. Most of them raised their hands before we even asked a question. We talked to them about being safe in the car, asking them questions like "What is the very first thing to do when you get in a car?" The answer of course is "Put your seatbelt on!"

Check out the pics of Vince and Larry saying goodbye to the kids as they leave and getting goody bags from YOVASO members that had great stuff in them like coloring books, stickers, and tatoos all focused on safety.

We also reminded them about being safe while riding bikes, on the bus, and riding fourwheelers and skateboards. And they just love the Crash Dummies, Larry and Vince. Two of our YOVASO members dressed up in the costumes and gave the kids high fives as they left the presentation. One of the best moments is near the end of our little assembly when we asked the kids if they had anything they wanted to ask or tell us. One little girl told us that her aunt is not safe in the car and that she's worried about her little cousins because they never where their seatbelts. We told her that she could use the reminder cards in their goody bags to help teach her how important it is to be safe in the car. We can only hope that these remember what we taught them and can maybe help educate their siblings and parents so that we can all be a little safer.

The Stats of Driving Safety

Check out this PSA the head football coaches from our three high schools helped us put together. These coaches coming together, despite long standing sportsman like rivals, is symbolic of how we all need to do our part to promote driving safety. Regardless of where you live, how old you are, or your level of experience car crashes can happen. I know that this PSA really made some of our hard to reach students sit up and take notice because their coaches were on the screen. This PSA was played on our televised morning announcements, on our local cable channel, and will be made available county wide to help raise awareness.

Through the Foundation for Traffic Safety, we purchased a computer simulator program called Driver-ZED. This program allows students to work through scenarios in order to practice safe driving skills. The program walks students through simulated driving experiences and requires them answer questions and "take action" in simple and complex traffic situations. Our club members are currently familiarizing themselves with the software so that we can use it at future events to raise awareness about driving dangers. We also supplied our drivers education teachers a copy of the program so it can be used in the classroom with students in 10th grade.

Our school paper helps us to promote future events such as our Chain of Life activity. Publicity really helps to spread the word and raise awareness.

Another Showcase

This second showcase display focuses on the stats provided by Keep the Drive. Knowing that we loose so many young people to car crash each day, month, and year is eye opening. By keeping the display simple we hoped to reinforce the simple truth that people are dying and we can all do our part to prevent it. As YOVASO has taught us, they are car crashes, not accidents because they are preventable and predictable.

Showcase

We previously conducted a Seat belt Survey checking to see how many of our students/parents left our school parking lot wearing their seat belts and without distractions like cell phones, music, and/or other passengers. As a result, we found out that only 80% of our students are wearing their seat belt when they exit the student parking lot. (Keep in mind that this only includes students who leave immediately at the end of the school day, not students who stay for after school activities.) We also found out that 25% of our students are distracted drivers leaving the parking lot. Surprisingly, we also determined that only 65% of the parents picking students up from the school were wearing their seat belts. We took the information and created a display for students informing them that 20% of our students at risk behind the wheel is not acceptable. "20% is not ok with us!"

Liberty High School YOVASO will be conducting the following activities during the Act Out Loud campaign. Please come to these events and be a part of positive change in driving habits in our community.

Showcase displays
displays with information and props related to driving safety

Seatbelt Fashion show
Accessories created using seatbelts. Show taped for and aired on our televised morning announcements.

Elementary school visit
visit to our neighboring elementary school to discuss bike, bus, and care safety with second graders

Visit roll call for local law enforcement
providing our local law enforcement with treats and thank you cards for help making our roads safer

Ghost day
wearing t-shirts labeling students as mock crash victims. There are 4 designs total

Chain of life
students sign paper pledges to buckle up, drive sober, and without distractions. Pledges are then linked together and displayed in our school so students can see our level of dedication to safer driving

Memory Wall
Students use fake bricks to post messages in memory of friends or family they have lost in car crashes. The wall is constructed and displayed for students so that they can see how much we are all impacted by unsafe driving.

Seatbelt Survey
Record data as to how many of our students and teachers leave our parking lot wearing seatbelts and if they are focused on the road or distracted. Data is tracked and shared with the student body to demonstrate the severity of those issues and hopefully improvements as well.

Public Service Announcements
PSAs taped for and aired on our morning announcements relevant to the activities we are conducting and driving safety in general

“Safety Saturday”
Outdoor, open to public event, held on Saturday May 16th including such events as:
Fatal Vision Goggles
Radar simulation
Rollover Simulator
Seat Belt Convincer
Child Safety Seat Inspections
Local Volunteer Fire Department
local car insurance representatives
local members of law enforcement and the justice system
guest speakers, such as crash survivors and family members

Only the planning and publicity for this event will be posted to our blog because the event does not take place until after the competition deadline to begin voting.

So excited

LHS YOVASO is so excited to be participating in the Act Out Loud competition. Our organization is all about speaking out, Youth of Virginia Speak Out. Our mission is to help raise awareness within our school and community about driving safety issues. We truly hope that our activities/events make a difference by changing some bad habits. Who knows how many lives can be saved. Join us by remembering to buckle up, drive sober, and pay attention to the road instead of your friends or cell phones. Remind the other drivers you know to do the same.