Teen Driver Summit Convenes Students and Teachers in D.C.

With each September's school start, teen car crashes capture headlines across the country. This fall, however, students are trying to change that news.

Students and teachers from across the country are gathering in Washington, D.C., for the Teen Driver Safety Summit. Held October 15-16, the event kicks off National Teen Driver Safety Week. The summit is sponsored by State Farm®, NYLC, and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and will provide service-learning and public-policy training to prepare young people for advocacy work and peer-education efforts in their home states.

The summit is, in part, an outgrowth of the national teen driver safety program Project Ignition, now in its fourth year. Sponsored by NYLC and State Farm, Project Ignition involves high school students, teachers, and community program leaders in implementing service-learning projects promoting safe driving. Their campaigns have used a range of media, including T.V. commercials, print ads, radio spots, websites, direct mail, special events, performances, publications, and even short films.

Each year, teams of students submit proposals, and 25 of them are awarded $2,000 grants to turn their plans into action. The campaigns are evaluated, and the top 10 teams receive another $5,000 to attend The National Service-Learning Conference. At the conference, students present their service-learning projects to a national audience and a panel of judges who select the Best of the Best from the finalists, earning that school a $10,000 grant from State Farm.

Increasingly, the Project Ignition teams are working with legislators and local public safety agencies, moving from advocacy work to shaping public policy — all of which will be advanced at the summit. "We have followed the remarkable growth in young people impacting their schools and communities through these driver safety campaigns," says NYLC President and CEO Jim Kielsmeier. "The summit is a natural next step, bringing students' insights to policy-makers."

"There is clearly a growing public awareness and interest in the issue of teen drivers and their safety," adds NYLC National Teen Driver Safety Director Michael Van Keulen. "Efforts like the Teen Driver Safety Summit engage key stakeholders, young people, and encourage them to take their roles as leaders and citizens seriously, to affect policy in a meaningful way. This work is worthy of our public attention."