Teen driving safety is an issue that our Missouri personal injury attorneys feel strongly about. We have offices throughout the state (Springfield, Joplin, Cape Girardeau, Columbia and Kansas City), and we see far too many serious accidents that involve Missouri teenagers. The Insurance Institute for Highway safety reports that 11 American teenagers are killed every day in traffic accidents that are largely preventable: these accidents are the number 1 cause of death for teens. To combat this massive problem, the Allstate Foundation and the National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS) have developed the "Act Out Loud" program, which recognizes school-based driving safety projects led by teens. In the program, open to high schools throughout the United States, students participate as a team in three different activities. They are awarded points based on school participation and activity, and overall winners are chosen. The deadline to register your school is January 31.
The Safe-Tee Design Activity (February)
For this contest, teens create an awareness message on a T-shirt template: the topic of the message should be related to the dangers of using cell phones and other electronic devices while driving. During the week of February 13-17, teams will upload their designs to the Act Out Loud website. Judges will select the top 25 entries, and feature those designs on the Act Out Loud Facebook page, where they will be open to public voting from February 24-29. Along with points awarded based on the number of votes received, the winners will also receive up to 500 T-shirts featuring their design.
Creative Community Sign for Safe Driving (March)
This activity focuses on spreading awareness throughout individual communities. Teams must develop a creative sign that focuses on passenger restrictions. (Suggestions include spelling out messages using items like plastic cups (in a chain length fence), cupcakes, football helmets, the school marching band, etc.). Then, students will photograph their signs and upload them to the Act Out Loud website: again, the top 25 entries are posted on Facebook and voted on. Signs should be uploaded the week of March 12-16, and voting will take place March 23-27.
Create a Facebook Yearbook (April - May)
Teams download a "Yearbook of You" photo montage application from the Act Out Loud Facebook page. The app identifies the user's top 10 tagged friends, and those friends receive a video message containing information about teen driving safety. Scoring for this activity is based on the number of "Yearbook of You" montages generated by a school team. Also, there's an $11,000 prize to be given to one randomly selected montage (with an additional $1000 award for every student featured in the montage).