• Motor accidents are a leading cause of death for teens

MICHIGAN - The Strive for a Safer Drive (S4SD) campaign is back for it’s 11th year to sponsor student-led programs to reduce traffic crashes for teens. Schools from all over Michigan sign up each year to receive a thousand dollars to conduct their student run campaigns.

S4SD is a combined effort of the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning and Ford Motor Company Fund.

“It just makes sense to train young people how to drive." Says Jim Graham, a global manager for Ford Driving Skills for Life, "The leading cause of death of teens is vehicle crashes."

Risky driving behaviors such as speeding and distracted driving are a few of the causes in teen motor crashes that the S4SD campaign strives to prevent.

How the campaign works is that students are the ones running the events at the schools in peer-to-peer traffic safety awareness campaigns. Once projects are done, each school team will submit a video or PowerPoint overview of their project. Schools with the top five winning campaign will receive a cash prize.

Also, all participating schools have an opportunity to send students to a free Ford Driving Skills for Life hands-on driving clinic in the spring. Driving instructors from all over the US will come together and teach teens key driving skills and highlight the dangers of distracted and impaired driving.

Since the creation of S4SD in 2011, over 173 different high schools all over Michigan have participated in the program.