COLUMBUS – The Ohio State Highway Patrol reports 39% of Ohio’s distracted driving crashes since 2018 have involved drivers between ages 15-24. Students in Ohio Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA®) are taking matters into their own hands to make their communities safer, creating teen safe driving campaigns addressing the very real dangers of distracted and impaired driving. FCCLA is a Career and Technical Student Organization founded in 1945 with a mission to promote personal growth and leadership development through Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) education. FCCLA, Inc. has 5017 chapters and over 231,000 student members nationally, with 275 chapters and over 10,000 members in Ohio FCCLA.

Through FCCLA, students engage in FACTS (Families Acting for Community Traffic Safety), a national peer-to-peer education program through which students strive to save lives through personal, vehicle, and road safety. Using integrated classroom lessons FCS educators engage students in FACTS to provide youth with the information and incentives they need to understand what it means to be safe on our roads. FCCLA members use what they have learned through FACTS lessons to plan and carry out projects that help them, their peers, and their community members make informed, responsible decisions about traffic safety.

The FCCLA FACTS National Program offers FCCLA members across the nation the opportunity to submit project applications each year, recognizing outstanding achievements in promoting safe driving and responsible behavior on the roads with cash prizes to promote the winning campaigns, sponsored by the Ohio Department of Public Safety partnership.

Columbus hosted the Ohio FCCLA State Leadership Conference and FACTS Initiative Awards April 27 and 28, at the Ohio Expo Center, Kasich Hall, awarding 10 of the 100 participating Ohio FCCLA Chapters $2,500 prizes at the April 27 ceremony where Ohio Highway Patrol Superintendent, Colonel Charles A. Jones, was the keynote speaker.

The 2023 winning chapters and their campaign themes are:

• Bellefontaine High School, Bellefontaine, Ohio: Don’t Speed Through Life

• Buckeye Career Center ECE I, New Philadelphia, Ohio: Impaired Driving Prevention Initiative

• Fayetteville High School, Fayetteville, Ohio: Mario Kart Live, Don’t Drink and Drive

• Houston High School, Houston, Ohio: FACTS Week

• Jackson Center Jr./Sr. High School Upper Valley Career Center, Jackson Center, Ohio: “Paws”itively Safe”

• Jefferson County JVS ECE B, Bloomingdale, Ohio: Are you distracted when you drive???

• Jefferson County JVS ECE A, Bloomingdale, Ohio: Speeding? Who Me?

• Logan High School, Logan, Ohio: Hands Off of Distracted Driving

• Ohio Hi-Point Career Center- Main Campus 1, Bellefontaine, Ohio: Cut out distractions!

• R. G. Drage Career Technical Center ECE, Massillon, Ohio: Impaired Driving Awareness

The Ohio State Leadership Conference is the largest Ohio FCCLA event of the year with attendees participating in career development, leadership training, and service learning as well. Participants proudly wear the FCCLA red blazer as a symbol of their leadership, professionalism, and service to the organization. Over 1000 students and advisers across the state attended the conference.

Since the launch of this opportunity in October 2019, Ohio has seen 325 Ohio FCCLA Chapters with over 6,600 members granted funds to conduct and implement traffic safety projects in their community through youth-empowered peer education, reaching an estimated 360,000 individuals directly and 3.7 million through the media. The grants were awarded by the Ohio Traffic Safety Office (OTSO), a division of the Ohio Department of Public Safety.

“We believe the best way to promote change with our youth is to involve them,” said OTSO Director Emily Davidson. “The Ohio Traffic Safety Office has always had a great working relationship with FCCLA to help get students involved in advancing traffic safety priorities, like promoting seat belt use and awareness of the dangers of distracted driving, speeding, and impaired driving.”

Earlier this year, OTSO teamed up with Ohio FCCLA to create new messaging for teen drivers in an effort to reduce youth-related crashes and fatalities in Ohio. Two winners were selected from five finalists in the inaugural youthful driver poster contest. The winning posters will now be printed by OTSO and shared with traffic safety partners across Ohio.

Other examples of the impact students made this past year include installing new signs at three crosswalks at their school; conducting seat belt checks as students arrived at the school parking lot; and working with local insurance representatives and police departments to educate their peers. After a school-wide presentation, more than half of the students reported they will take distracted driving more seriously and be aware of the consequences of distracted driving. Students from another school reported that they will now take a stand for themselves as well informed passengers to prevent others from driving impaired sothat no one gets hurt on the road.