CONCEPT –
Crawford County has one of the lowest teen compliance rates for seat belts in the state. In the spring of 2008, law enforcement officers in Crawford County joined together to visit all of the schools in the county. The goal was to spend two weeks educating the students, followed by two weeks of high visibility enforcement. Somewhere along the line, an idea was hatched for a new project to increase compliance.
After some ideas were tossed around, Crawford County Sheriff Sandy Horton took the lead role to bring the idea to fruition. The Crawford County Sheriff’s Office, in cooperation the Kansas Highway Patrol, and Kansas Department of Transportation has developed a pilot project to increase seat belt compliance among high school students in Crawford County.
The concept developed around two important points. The first point was to involve the students in as much as possible in order to develop their ownership in the program. Secondly, was to show them an immediate reward for wearing their seat belt. Law Enforcement most often presents programs that send the message – “If you don’t buckle up; you could get a ticket, or you could be killed.” The concept with this new program is to immediately reward the students for buckling their seatbelt.
To participate in the program, each month, each student would sign a “pledge card”, stating that they would wear their seat belt. The card would make them eligible for a monthly drawing for a $25 VISA card. Each school would get six cards each month to give away. The school would draw the cards, and award the monthly prizes.
The monthly drawings should encourage participation, keep it on the minds of the students each month, and generate some articles in the school newspaper, and school web pages.
There will be two large grand prizes at the end of the school, year. These will be awarded to the school that has the highest compliance rate and to the school with the most improvement in their compliance. The grand prize will be worth around a total of $2700 and will include one laptop computer and five Ipods per school. Student names will be drawn to determine winners.
In addition, the students were going to design their own pledge card, with each school logo on the cards. The students will also conduct seat belt surveys to gauge their compliance. The surveys would generate some friendly competition, and would be used to determine which school went into the drawing for a larger grand prize.
The core group met to develop the concept then contacted schools, and a few local businesses for support of the program.
In Crawford County, there are six high schools, and all of the schools have chosen to participate in the program. The six schools are:
Pittsburg Pittsburg High School
Pittsburg Colgan High School
Frontenac Frontenac High School
Cherokee Cherokee High School
Girard Girard High School
Arma Arma High School
The program was first presented to the individual administrators, and then to the students. All of the schools chose to participate. One of the schools volunteered to develop the pledge cards, which will have the logos of all schools, realizing that this is a “county-wide” project for the students, as much as it is a competition between the schools.
SURVEY –
To gauge effectiveness, and make a school eligible for the grand prize, surveys will be conducted at each school.
In October, Dan Schulte, with DCCA trained students and law enforcement representatives on how to conduct the seat belt surveys. The schedule for the surveys is to conduct a baseline, a survey after an education phase, and a final survey.
SCHEDULE –
The schedule will be to conduct surveys at each school during the month of November to develop a baseline compliance rate.
In December, we will announce the program to the entire student body, and begin to conduct education efforts at each school.
The drawings for the $25.00 gift card will start in December and run through the end of March. Approximately six gift cards will be given away at each school through the end of the project.
After the education phase, a second survey will be conducted to check the results of the education efforts.
After the education efforts, law enforcement will conduct targeted enforcement efforts at each school.
A final survey will be conducted in April, and will be the basis for awarding the grand prizes.
PROGRAM NAME –
Nominations were made by the students as to what name to give the program. Three different slogans were proposed, and by a vote, the students selected, “SAFE” for Seatbelts Are For Everyone.
BUDGET –
The budget will be in the $6,300.00 range so we will be able to do six $25.00 gift cards per school per month, and grand prizes.
Sponsors included The Crawford County Sheriff’s Office (representing all Crawford County law enforcement), the Kansas State Trooper’s Association, the Kansas Department of Transportation – (Bureau of Traffic Safety), Farm Bureau, Labette Bank and AAA of Kansas.
OTHER DEPARTMENTS –
As the program develops, other local departments are being brought on board. One of the criteria is that all of the departments, and more particularly – officers, must make the same commitment. Nothing would thwart efforts more than an officer pulling up, or going through a survey without their own seat belt fastened.
MEETINGS –
A meeting was held on Wednesday September 24th, 2008 at 9:30AM at the Sheriff’s Office. All schools were involved, with students, and they finalized the pledge cards and sought input from the students and advisors on the campaign. They also decided who would be trained in the seat belt surveys.
Survey training was held on October 22nd, 2008 at 9AM at the Sheriff’s Office in Girard. The training was scheduled for one-hour classroom and then one hour practical, but a heavy rain kept everyone indoors.
UPDATES –
The school assemblies began in December. The first one was at Pittsburg and it was very successful. Law Enforcement was well received by students and staff and at the end of the assembly six $25.00 VISA cards were drawn for by those who had signed their pledge cards earlier in the day.
The rest of the school assemblies were scheduled, and completed as follows:
Pittsburg Wednesday December 3rd 1100
Northeast / Arma Friday December 5th 1430
Southeast / Cherokee Monday December 8th 1430
St.Marys / Colgan Wednesday December 10th 1300
Frontenac Monday December 15th 1210
Girard Wednesday December 17th 0800
The program is having a large impact across the community. Each month, 1,875 pledge cards are needed for all of the schools, meaning that the same numbers of students are pledging to buckle up.
All of the schools were contacted by the middle of December, and the program was kicked off. Kids got the message – Education now and enforcement follows.
The next phase will be another seat belt survey in January or February 2009, followed by enforcement.
SURVEY – February 2009 –
The baseline survey was done to document the initial compliance rate. After the safety programs were completed, a second survey was conducted to see what the impact was to that point. Due to the fact that the schools were in a competitive mode, the results were not released publicly.
ENFORCEMENT PHASE –
Troopers and deputies conducted the 2-week enforcement period from Mar. 23rd through April 3rd.
During the enforcement phase, officers were highly visible, targeting the areas and times where they would have a high concentration of students. Patrol cars used in the enforcement prominently displayed “Click It or Ticket” logos on the vehicles. By enforcing the law in such a manner, not only did they identify violators, but word of the enforcement spread through the schools very quickly.
During the enforcement phase, the following activity was reported:
Teen Seat Belt Arrests 64
Adult Seat Belt Arrests 36
Child Restraint Arrests 24
Other arrests 17
Other Warnings 16
DUI Arrests 2
Total stops 140
By comparison, last year during a similar two-week enforcement period, (prior to the SAFE program), 292 seat belt tickets were issued.
FINAL SURVEY:
The final surveys were completed by the students in mid-April. The two grand prize schools are Southeast with the highest overall compliance percentage of 94% and Girard with the highest compliance percentage increase of 34%
For all of the schools, the results were:
School Initial Survey Final Survey Increase
Pittsburg 64% 78% 14%
Arma 57% 82% 25%
Girard 55% 89% 34%
Southeast 82% 94% 12%
Frontenac 70% 81% 11%
Colgan 80% 82% 2%
OVERALL 16.3%
Overall, the schools showed an average increase of 16.3% - or another 16 out of every 100 teens buckling up. With 1875 students in the county, that is an additional 306 students traveling safer every day.
MEDIA COVERAGE:
A large part of the program was media coverage. Listed below are links to some of the media coverage. In addition, the Kansas State Trooper magazine ran an article on the program.
http://www.morningsun.net/news/x1984811723/SAFE-program-seeing-results
http://www.koamtv.com/global/story.asp?s=10072262
http://www.fox14tv.com/global/story.asp?s=10072262 (same story as koamtv.com)
http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/local_story_084215527.html
http://fourstateshomepage.com/
KANSAS TRAFFIC SAFETY CONFERENCE –
Sheriff Horton and several students presented at state-wide traffic safety conference in Wichita, where the Sheriff and several students received a “People Saving People” Award for their accomplishments.