Click Clack Front and Back
How many students heard the message of your project?
719
Estimated percentage of your student body?
91-100%
Who has your project aimed to reach?
Freshman class, Sophomore class, Junior class, Senior class, School professionals, Parents, Community at large, Other (State of New Jersey)
Objective:
We continued our objective to increase the compliance of teens, adults, and all passengers wearing seat belts in both the front and back seats. This year’s focus was primarily on the rear seat. We continue to work with Senator Schepisi from District 39 on Primary Enforcement Seat Belt Law (Rear) change for New Jersey. On November 14, 2022, Senator Schepisi introduced into the Senate, Referred to Senate Law and Public Safety Committee Bill S3323. Assemblyman Auth sponsored the companion Bill A5163 on February 6, 2023, which was introduced to the Assembly, and referred to the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee. Our motto, “Click-Clack Front and Back,” is symbolic of us trying to get people to understand that no matter where you are in the car – front or back you have to wear your seat belt. All passengers need to be properly restrained: it’s the law, but more importantly, it can have an impact on saving lives, as Gabby says in our video advocating for S3323/A5163 that was sent to the NJ Senators and Assemblymembers in all 40 districts to gain their support for the law change. “The passengers in the back seat deserve to be as protected as the passengers in the front seat.”
Target Audience:
The “Click Clack Front and Back” project targets any adult, teen, or child traveling in a motor vehicle. Our primary focus will be the students in grades 9-12 at Indian Hills High School. We hope to share our message with their parents, older and younger siblings, relatives, and all who travel to and from Indian Hills High School, including the teachers, administrators, and support staff. We expanded this to include the Franklin Lakes and Wyckoff towns, which comprise the (FLOW) community of students attending Indian Hills and Ramapo High Schools.
For teenagers, including using the U Got Brains-Champion Schools Program-Safe Driver of the Month parking spot close to the building. We planned to have various contests to promote safe driving, Including -social media-Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, a catchy song/dance, messages on Schoology, selfie-promoting seatbelt use, seatbelt safety memes, traffic safety songs, poems, and posters. We recently created a car magnet that we started using for our May parking spot contest and will continue to use this as part of our contest as our peers help promote safe driving with our magnet. Promote signing the Pledge 2 Win Share the Road Campaign to be eligible to win a $50.00 gift card on Schoology, our social media platforms, and our website. We also hosted our second annual Traffic Safety Thursday lunch event on April 20, 2023, for students and staff who were educated via a physics experiment demonstrating the importance of wearing a seatbelt and both the front and back seats.
For adults, Social media-Facebook, Taking the online Pledge 2 Win for a $50.00 gift card.
Execution:
Our fourth year of participating has proven successful in trying to make progress in promoting Bills S3323/A5163. The bills are pending in the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee and the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee. The “Click-Clack Front and Back” (CCF&B) team met with Kate O’Connor via Zoom on Friday, October 28, 2022, and knew they wanted to focus on seatbelt safety in both front and back seats with an emphasis on the rear seat. In addition, they are continuing their work on the Primary Enforcement of Seat Belt Law (Rear) change in New Jersey.
Click Clack Front and Back was very active in the fall. We participated in our school’s Service Fair, Back to School Night, Open House for 8th graders deciding which high school to come to, and Trunk or Treat during the lunch periods on Halloween, where we offered students Kit Kats if they agreed to Click Clack. We participated in National Teen Driver Safety Week on October 16-23. The guest speakers in our Driver Education classes included Mike McCormick (9/19 & 9/20)presented, “What Do You Consider Lethal?” Roz Thompson from AAA Northeast presented Shifting Gears: The Blunt Truth About Marijuana and Driving, Kate O’Connor from Brain Injury Alliance of NJ presented “Share the Road: Distracted Driving and Pedestrian Safety” We were also privileged to have Ametra Burton from NJ Sharing Network to educate the students about organ donation. Pat Mccormick presented our annual Share the Keys in person for the first time since 2019. We continued to promote the parking spot and work to advocate for the law change. In the spring, we hosted our 2nd annual CCF&B Traffic Safety Thursday Lunch Fair, which had arts and crafts, a physics demonstration with a pre/post survey, and our new car magnet promoting May’s parking spot contest. We sent our video to NJ Senators and Assemblymembers in all 40 districts to gain their support for the law change.
We look forward to having a Lobby Day towards the end of May.
Teamwork:
The team completed the project by coming together on September 30, 2022-May 3, 2023, approximately 20 times for our CCF&B meetings in person. The founding members(Class of 2022)graduated last year, so it was great to have three of the four sophomores from the previous year return this year and serve as our three junior leaders. Two of our three junior leaders are younger siblings of members that graduated last year. They have done and led the next generation of Click Clack members and helped the transition for all the new members, including freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. The team has worked with enthusiasm, persistence, and vigor. This year, we have over 25 members: juniors, sophomores, and freshmen. It’s Click Clack, the next generation! The energy that this group exuded when working together was incredible! Throughout this process, I have learned the individual team member’s strengths and would go to them for help in their area of expertise when needed. Izzy, Gabby, and Alexa have emerged as our new leaders. Sydney Z. has taken over CCF&B Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Sami L. created this year’s t-shirt. Sienna, Gabby’s younger sister, created our new website on Google Sites; that way, we can keep updating it and pass it on to new members in the future. Tyler, Zander, and Jon are the three males on the team and bring a different perspective to some creative ideas. Each member has their strength, and I would like to be able to mention each one individually, but with a growing membership, there is not enough space.
Use of resources:
We continued to partner with Tara Gill from Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (via 139 emails) about working with Senator Shepisi on the many revisions of the draft bill before it became Bill S3323. The students have been recognized on the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety for the Letter to the Editor last May and for the video they created this year to share with NJ Senators and Assembly Members in the 40 districts asking for their support with Bills S3323/A5163. Tara continues working with me and the students to help us pass this bill. We are working with her to hopefully have a Lobby Day in Trenton in late May or early June to coordinate with the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration’s National Seatbelt Campaign, which runs from May 23-June 5. We feel the timing would also be good before the summer’s 100 deadliest days; we want to keep all passengers in the vehicle safe.
We have continued to work with Senator Holly Schepisi and her chief of staff, Ms. Dawson; we met on Zoom in November 2022 to discuss the next steps in supporting Bill S3323, as mentioned above. We have contacted her office and are eager to hold a Lobby Day in Trenton. Look for updates on our social media pages.
We later learned that Assemblyman Auth sponsored a companion bill in the Assembly A 5163. We have reached out to his office. We have a club member Gabby T. whose father is on the town council in Oakland and has been friends since childhood with Assemblyman Auth. Gabby has indicated that Assemblyman Auth has expressed to her and her father that he would like to host and give us a tour of Trenton. We eagerly await the opportunity to offer and work with him. Look for updates
Officer Steve Albert is new to overseeing the Traffic Bureau for the Borough of Oakland Police Department. Officer Albert was gracious enough to address our question, and you can find that information in our supportive folder.
We created a business flyer to be shared with local businesses.
Use of media:
We understood social media’s importance in spreading our message and reaching high school populations.
We created an Instagram https://www.instagram.com/clickclackfrontandback_ihhs/, sharing videos, polls, and pledges.
We also promoted our safety message through Twitter https://twitter.com/clickclackfron1.
We provided updated information, including weekly posts, safety messages, and pictures of our meetings on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/jill.fackelman.9/.
Our updated student-created Google website provided a wealth of information on this year’s campaign https://sites.google.com/student.rih.org/click-clackihhs/home
To keep current with the times, we even created a TikTok @clickclackfrontback.
Our Promotion of S3323/A5163, PSAs, and Final Project Summary are on YouTube.
We used our school’s LMS to share messages, polls, pledges, and a CCF&B poster Scavenger hunt with students and staff and promote the U Got Brains-Champion Schools Program-Safe Driver of the Month parking sign spot for a deserving IHHS student driving to school.
All parents at IHHS received an e-blast message explaining our campaign, promoting our social media and website, and the Take the Pledge link.
We will continue to pursue our Lobby Day with Senator Schepisi, Assemblyman Auth, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, and other advocates we can work with. Look for updates on our social media pages.
Thoroughness: Show how your project demonstrates an understanding of teen driving safety According to the CDC, as both passengers and drivers, teens have the lowest seat belt use of any age group. The team members are juniors, sophomores, and freshmen, some with their probationary licenses and others with their permits. They used the following websites to gather information and statistics about seat belt use among adults and teens. The sites used include the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) for both information on seat belts and teen driving, the National Safety Council (NSC), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and AAA.
https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/teen_drivers/teendrivers_factsheet.html
https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/seat-belts
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/occupant-protection/seat-belts/
https://www.teendriversource.org/teen-crash-risks-prevention/rules-of-the-road/seat-belt-use-facts-and-stats
https://www.nhtsa.gov/road-safety/teen-driving
https://exchange.aaa.com/safety/teen-driver-safety/
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/teenagers
https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/stsi.htm#
https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/SASStoredProcess/guest
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/
https://saferoads.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2023-Advocates-Report-online-interactive-fnl3.pdf
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/tgill%40saferoads.org/FMfcgzGqRQJkQVFLkfjQcGnzLMZjDGrL?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1
https://www.nhtsa.gov/campaign/click-it-or-ticket
https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/car/most-dangerous-times-to-drive/#why-are-the-holidays-so-deadly
Impact:
In 2021, 699 people lost their lives on New Jersey roads. This is a more than 19% increase over 2020 (586 people were killed), according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). NHTSA reports that more than 52% of passenger vehicle occupants killed that year were unrestrained, when restrain use was known. This is an increase over 2020 (46% of passenger vehicle occupants killed were unrestrained, when restrain use was known).
Our project demonstrates an understanding of teen driving safety because wearing your seatbelt applies to all ages. Based on our research and polls, many teenagers said they don’t wear their belts in the front, back, or both seats. We wanted to be a part of this project because we saw an issue in our community and worked together to solve it. Our recent feedback shows that several students, parents, teachers, and teens gave us the recognition that we were doing great to help our school and our community.
At our traffic safety fair, we had a physics demonstration proving that buckling your seat in front and back is vital. We had a pre and post-survey that we asked participants to partake in. Our findings include the following. I clearly understand the relationship between inertia and how it helps to improve my surviving a crash if wearing a seatbelt in the rear (back) seat. Only 75% of those surveyed rated a 5. After viewing the demonstration, 100% of respondents indicated the importance of being buckled in the rear seat. We plan to share this information with the NJ legislature
Sustainability:
We successfully got Senator Schepisi to sponsor Bill S3323 and Assemblyman Auth to introduce the companion Bill A5163. We are optimistic about having a Lobby Day sometime between May 23-June 5, which is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration National Seatbelt Campaign, and before the “100 Deadliest Days of Summer” between Memorial Day and Labor Day when “this time period represents the highest likelihood of fatal crashes, especially for inexperienced drivers and teens who are more likely to be on the road since they are not in a classroom all day. The likelihood of a crash not only increases because teen drivers may be in the car longer, but also because they are more likely to have a passenger with them” According to the Most Dangerous Days to Drive on Bankrate.com. (https://www.bankrate.com/insurance/car/most-dangerous-times-to-drive/)
The bills are pending in the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee and the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee. When the students are successful in their efforts, they will be responsible for starting a movement to change the law that will directly and positively impact the safety of drivers and passengers on the roadways of New Jersey.
This has been an ongoing effort for the past four years. Though we have yet to pass the law, we are getting closer each year. Once we are successful in helping pass the law, we will move on to another focus. Still, we want to see this through to the successful end of passing the law and helping NJ become the 21st state to make not wearing your seatbelt in the rear a primary offense and save lives and decrease fatalities and severe injury due to one not wearing their seatbelt in the backseat. As the mother of two soon-to-be sixteen-year-olds eligible to start their permit process in June, I am not willing to give up on this, nor will the students. Just as I want my children to be as safe on the roads in NJ, I want the same for my students and their families.
Unexpected Lessons Learned:
This has been Click Clack the next generation. I miss the class of 2022 but was excited to see our numbers get close to 30 members. This group comes with new ideas and talents. I have been so fortunate that the three new junior leaders are strong and guide the club toward achieving the goal started by the founding members. I look forward to these members having the opportunity to meet with NJ legislators and have the first-hand experience of helping to change a law to promote safety in New Jersey. We have also had to learn patience and that law changes don’t happen as quickly as you would like them to. Persistence and pushing beyond one’s comfort zone can help get the desired outcome. I hope that is one of many life lessons the club members learn by being part of something bigger than themselves and learning the value of serving others for the greater good. Keeping others safe and being able to say they were able to have a positive impact on their state.
We plan to Zoom with Sangeeta Badlani on Friday, May 5, to learn more about the Youth Advisory Board and how we might be able to implement it as part of CCF&B. We are co-sponsoring an event on May 10 with the Students for Legal Justice club at IHHS. We will meet Assemblyman Brian Bergen from District 25 as he responded to our video and is interested in learning more about our efforts. We are meeting with Oakland Mayor Linda Schwager on Friday, May 12, as she is interested in learning more about our advocacy, and we plan to ask her what we might be able to do next year to help with traffic safety in the community. We will continue to explore what more CCF&B can do in addition to promoting seatbelt safety.
Stipend Reporting:
Your school received a stipend to support your Champion School Teen Driving Safety Project. Additionally, any funds that you raised as a result of your project must be reinvested into transportation safety. The purpose of this report is to itemize expenditures for your project that were paid from the stipend
Items for Traffic Safety Thursday Lunch Event 4/20/23 – $205.62
CCF&B Magnets for Parking spot contest – $395.00
Bill S3323 Custom Ink t-shirts 2022-23 – $564.65
Total – $1,165.27
PROJECT MEDIA
