COLUMBUS & LEWISBURG — According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, 39 percent of Ohio’s distracted driving crashes since 2018 have involved drivers between ages 15-24. Students in Ohio Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA®) are taking matters into their own hands to make their communities safer, creating teen safe driving campaigns addressing the very real dangers of distracted and impaired driving.

FCCLA® is a Career and Technical Student Organization founded in 1945 with a mission to promote personal growth and leadership development through Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) education. FCCLA® Inc. has 5,100 chapters and over 240,000 student members nationally, with 275 chapters and over 10,000 members in Ohio FCCLA®. Through FCCLA®, students engage in FACTS (Families Acting for Community Traffic Safety), a national peer-to-peer education program through which students strive to save lives through personal, vehicle, and road safety.

Using integrated classroom lessons FCS educators engage students in FACTS to provide youth with the information and incentives they need to understand what it means to be safe on our roads. FCCLA® members use what they have learned through FACTS lessons to plan and carry out projects that help them, their peers, and their community members make informed, responsible decisions about traffic safety.

The FCCLA® FACTS National Program offers FCCLA® members across the nation the opportunity to submit project applications each year, recognizing outstanding achievements in promoting safe driving and responsible behavior on the roads with cash prizes to promote the winning campaigns, sponsored by the Ohio Department of Public Safety partnership.

Columbus hosted the Ohio FCCLA® State Leadership Conference and FACTS Initiative Awards April 25 and 26, at the Ohio Expo Center’s Kasich Hall, awarding 10 of the 100 participating Ohio FCCLA® Chapters $2,500 travel stipends at the April 25 ceremony where Makenzie Kelley, FCCLA National First Vice-President, was the keynote speaker.

The 2024 winning chapters included Tri-County North High School FCCLA’s “Distracted Driving is Dangerous” campaign.

The Ohio State Leadership Conference is the largest Ohio FCCLA® event of the year with attendees participating in career development, leadership training, and service learning as well. Participants proudly wear the FCCLA® red blazer as a symbol of their leadership, professionalism, and service to the organization. Over 1,000 students and advisers across the state attended the conference. “The student members of FCCLA are committed to making an impact among their peers, and we value their perspective on the most effective ways to do that,” said OTSO Director Emily Davidson.

“That is why we have always had such a great relationship with FCCLA. These students are leaders in their schools and communities. The best way to create change in our youth is to involve them in it. That is what we have continued to do when it comes to advancing traffic safety priorities like seat belt use and awareness of the dangers of distracted or impaired driving and speeding.”

In the last year, students have made additional impact in their communities by advocating for new turn lane signs in their areas, evaluating safety issues with their school intersections and hosting a Teen Road Safety Assessment. Students have also worked with their local police departments to discuss the dangers of texting and driving, conduct seatbelt checks and provide helmet safety education for those students using off-road vehicles.