New program aims to prevent reckless driving among teens
By Andrew Dys The Herald

(Published January 18‚ 2002)

LANCASTER - In a county that had almost 600 car crashes involving teen-agers the past two years, one community action group and a high school are banding together to say enough is enough.

Healthy Lancaster, a private organization funded by grants from the J. Marion Sims Foundation, is asking teen drivers to join the "I Promise Program," a Canada-based initiative aimed at reducing teen car crashes.

Buford High School, where several students died in car crashes as recently as August, is hoping its teens say yes to better driving.

In the program, 100 teens and parents will sign yearlong safe driving contracts and their cars will display decals asking other drivers to call a monitoring service with reports of the teen's driving.

This isn't a tattletale program for police, said Tracy Garrell, interim executive director of Healthy Lancaster, but a way to notify only the driver's family about their teen's driving.

Healthy Lancaster is providing $5,000 to kick off the program.

Garrell hopes the idea will pay off in saved lives. "This is a way to hopefully affect behavior. There's clearly a need here in this community."

The Lancaster program, the first in South Carolina, is focusing initially on the Buford community. Next week, Healthy Lancaster will mail out 183 letters to families. The first 100 families to sign up will be included. After the first 100, other families can join for $49 each.

Buford High School Principal James Jordan hopes his students and their families participate.

"The staff has embraced the program and now we are hoping for positive results," Jordan said. "We've had more than our share of terrible traffic accidents, and this is a way to do more to try to stop the problem."

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