CALIFORNIA—The California Friday Night Live Partnership, a state-funded program, which was established in 1984, with the principal purpose of “reducing the number of deaths and injuries caused by teen motorists driving under the influence of alcohol and other drugs,” received a $400,000 grant by the California Office of Traffic Safety and the Tulare County Office of Education in an effort to promote traffic safety and curb underage drinking.
The organization aims at accomplishing this by funding programs, which will create partnerships between local law enforcement and adolescents. The programs will focus on traffic safety and underage drinking.
The grant also supports the Friday Night Live Partnership’s Anaheim summit. The summit is “a place for young people from across the state of California to come together for two to three days to share, connect, create, and empower one another to make their local communities safer,” according to the organization’s website.
In a post on Friday Night Live’s Facebook page, Jim Kooler, the Partnership’s administrator argued, “Youth respond to other youth much better than adult driven and delivered messages.” He added, “By supporting them with the skills and opportunities to make positive changes in their communities, we will see results that matter.”
“Car crashes continue to be the No. 1 cause of death for youth under age 24. For this reason, it makes sense that we would partner with young people to help change the environments and social norms that support risky youth behaviors,” stated program director, Lynne Goodwin.
The grant will also support a program called “Roadwatch” in which “For one hour…Friday Night Live Chapters across the state will observe drivers in an intersection near their school. During this hour, students will keep track of every distracted driver that passes. The collected data will then be submitted into the statewide database and released to media outlets throughout the state.”
According to the Partnership, the goal of Roadwatch is to raise awareness in California about the overwhelming abundance of distracted driving and to motivate the community to do something about this traffic safety issue.
