By AUBRIE GEORGE | The Marlton Telegram
With risks to new and inexperienced drivers being high, the Lenape Regional High School District has taken on an initiative to inform students about the risks of using electronic devices while driving.
Students throughout the school district were invited to submit a slogan that speaks to the tune of cell-phone free driving that will eventually be used alongside a graphic in the district’s campaign against the use of all electronic devices while driving.
Christopher Heilig, Assessment, Accountability and Planning Coordinator for the LRHSD, said allowing students to get involved by submitting their input is a way of emphasizing and spreading the campaign’s message.
“We feel that it will really get the message out about cell-phone free driving,” Heilig said. “The best way to get it out to our students is to have them be a part of it, which is really our philosophy with all of our initiatives.”
As of last Tuesday, Heilig said the district had already received close to 1,000 submissions from students
The campaign initiative, he said is not just being done on the part of the LRHSD — it is also being driven by the Community Alliance for Teen Safety (CATS), which is a partnership between the school district and other entities throughout the district’s communities that work to enhance safety for students.
“Many groups came together on this,” Heilig said. “The school district, law enforcement, the business community, youth athletics, interfaith society. All these leaders came together and joined in an effort for teen safety.”
The alliance was one of the driving forces behind the donation of driving simulators that were recently purchased for two of the district’s high schools.
“Many things have come out of CATS, one of them was the donation of the driving (make sure not driver) simulators to Shawnee and Cherokee as a result of members of the alliance that started foundations for their family members that have passed due to various driving situations,” Heilig said.
The simulators, made by Virtual Driver interactive, allow students to sit in the drivers seat with a seatbelt, wheel, gas and breaks as well as three monitors in front of them.
Students are taken through a virtual training program, which simulates dangerous driving situations and weather conditions, without actually putting the student driver in harms way. The program adds guides and pointers to the student driver’s environment that help point out dangers or recommended driving positions, according to the company’s Web site.
The program allows students to practice maneuvering a vehicle in difficult conditions — before they hit the road for real.
Simulators were donated to the district through the Ryan Fitzpatrick Memorial Fund in memory of Ryan Fitzpatrick, a Shawnee senior who was killed in an automobile accident last April, as well as through the Anthony J. Farrace Memorial Foundation in memory of Anthony Farrace, a Cherokee student killed in a car accident in 2007.
The alliance and the school district decided it would focus on spreading awareness about the risks of using electronic devices while driving after studying statistics that show the use of such devices are just as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol, Heilig said.
“The statistics are even worse for these distractions when they’re used in the car,” he said.
Because the district has so many student drivers, Heilig said this is an important initiative for the district to tackle.
“With all of the new and beginning drivers we have in our district, we feel it’s very important to impress upon our students, who are driving with very little experience, that the use of electronic devices while driving is very dangerous,” Heilig said.
The slogan contest was open to all students in the school district and was advertised on the district’s Web site with a link to an online form for students to submit their input.
Submissions for the contest were due last Friday. Heilig said the committee would judge the submissions and announce a winner. The winner of the contest was slated to win a $500 prize as well as recognition at the May 19 Board of Education meeting.
