This site is for parents, teens and businesses in Allen County, Indiana. The site has information that can help parents prepare teen drivers for the road ahead. The goal is to reduce teen deaths on local roads!

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 In Tribute

Drive Alive co-founder

Ralph Taylor

About the campaign

Drive Alive is a campaign that aims to reduce the number of deaths among local teen drivers. This is not just a local problem, of course. It is a national, and in fact a global problem. The campaign aims to address the problem locally in two ways.

1. It provides extra promotional muscle for existing teen-driving-safety programs, coordinating efforts with schools, police agencies, hospitals and others who are already engaged in this life-saving mission. The Coroner's Office is working with all of these agencies to identify existing programs, to support them with extra promotion and to identify unmet needs.

2. The campaign also assures a year-round emphasis on safe teen driving, because new teen drivers get their licenses every day.

The campaign's key strategy is to increase the amount of communication between parents and teen drivers. Extensive research suggests that this is the most effective way to help teens avoid deadly crashes, because most teens say that their parents wield the most influence over their driving.

Scientific polling and secondary research were used to develop the strategies and will be used to measure outcomes.

The campaign's "products" will be
1. Sponsored public service ads aimed at parents in a carefully executed multimedia campaign based on the research. Our key message in the ads is called "5-Alive," encouraging parents and teens to talk together for just 5 minutes a week about very specific safe-driving topics, which our ads will provide.

2. A Parent's Guide that offers page after page of specific tips, talking points and handy tools for parents to do the best job they can as their child's first driving instructor.

3. Additional "moment-of-truth" prompts and reminders to teens to drive safely. This may include stickers on their cars, and even on their dashboards, with reminders of the keys to safe driving: slow down; buckle up; drive sober.

4. An infrastructure that coordinates existing efforts in a new way, to create an overall effect that is greater than all the individual programs operating separately.

We expect outcomes to include fewer deaths among teens, and as a side effect, among the overall population, because while our messages are aimed at parents and teens, others will be exposed to the message as well!

The campaign is to be funded by local companies and individuals who care, and there are opportunities to get involved on a large or small scale. It is a very grassroots enterprise.  Contact Drive Alive for more information.