GLEN BURNIE, MARYLAND – The Maryland Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration (MDOT MVA) Maryland Highway Safety Office (MHSO) is teaming with State Farm® for Making It Click, a grant-funded program promoting seat belt usage among young drivers and passengers. Car crashes are the number-one killer of teens in the United States. In 2016, more than one in three young drivers killed in crashes were unbelted.
“Wearing a seat belt is your best defense in a crash,” said MDOT MVA Administrator and Governor Larry Hogan’s Highway Safety Representative Christine Nizer. “Creating a seat belt culture that encourages your friends and peers to buckle up every time they get in a vehicle only helps to reinforce this life-saving habit.”
Making It Click runs through May 31. Eight Maryland high schools and one college are participating in this new peer-led program. Schools are required to complete observational seat belt surveys at the beginning and end of the program. With toolkits provided by the MDOT MHSO, students will be able to creatively compete against other schools to raise awareness of always buckling up. Students can create posters, videos, memes, flyers, and other materials; sign pledge cards; and share their ideas about illustrating seat belt use and highway safety in school and through social media.
The participating schools are:
- Archbishop Spalding High School (Anne Arundel County)
- Calvert High School (Calvert County)
- Center for Applied Technology North (Anne Arundel County)
- Digital Harbor High School (Baltimore City)
- Eleanor Roosevelt High School (Prince George’s County)
- Kent Island High School (Queen Anne’s County)
- McDaniel College (Carroll County)
- St. Mary’s High School (Anne Arundel County)
- Washington Academy and High School (Somerset County)
The MHSO will recognize the school with the largest increase in seat belt use at the end of the program.
Editor’s Note: Follow students’ creativity on social media via #MakingItClick. Learn more about the MDOT MHSO’s Toward Zero Deaths campaign at towardzerodeathsmd.com, on Facebook @towardzerodeathsmd, on Twitter @tzd_maryland, and on Instagram @twdzerodeaths_md.
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