Local Notes

Volume 4, Number 3 - Summer 2001

• The Denver Metro Safe Community Coalition covers the seven counties of the greater Denver metropolitan area. The coalition has launched the Buckle Up Every Time campaign, encouraging part-time seat belt users to buckle up each time they get into a car. The campaign seeks to create new ways to gain the attention of part-time seat belt users. One strategy suggested by focus groups is using motor vehicle collision survivors and family members of part-time seat belt users killed in crashes to educate others. Buckle Up Every Time debuted at Denver's New Year's Eve Millennium Celebration, as metro-area mayors proclaimed "increasing seat belt use" to be a community New Year's resolution. St. Patrick's Day provided another focal point. Denver Metro Safe Community staff carried the Buckle Up Every Time message to 80,000 people along the route of Denver's St. Patrick's Day parade and to 100,000 others who watched the parade on television. The message was further carried to the local schools via two contests: High school students created buckle-up public service announcements, and elementary school students had friends and family sign pledges to always wear a safety belt when riding in motor vehicles; the best PSAs and the class with the most pledges were rewarded. For more information, contact Becky Sproul at (303) 436-7789 or .

• Gwinnett Safe Communities (GSC), based in Lawrenceville, Georgia, spent its first year on the essential tasks of problem identification and coalition-building. GSC established an advisory board that includes representatives from the county departments of police, education, health, and transportation; the University of Georgia; and a number of local businesses, industry groups, hospitals, emergency medical services agencies, police departments, and nonprofit organizations. Several types of information were used to help determine the coalition's initial focus. The advisory board provided insight into the nature of the local injury problem. The program epidemiologist used county traffic crash reports, vital statistics records, hospital discharge records, and emergency medical services trip reports to create a picture of risk areas and the impact of motor vehicle crashes on Gwinnett County. GSC conducted focus groups with county residents (with special emphasis on senior citizens and teenagers) and interviewed key informants. Based on this information, GSC is focusing its initial efforts in three areas: intersection crashes (especially those caused by red light running), teen drivers, and aggressive driving. GSC is now expanding its coalition, establishing subcommittees on education, enforcement, engineering, and advocacy, and preparing to implement prevention activities in the three target areas. For more information, contact Leslie Todorov at (678) 376-3200 or mailtoLATodorov@dhr.state.ga.us.

• In April, the Region I NHTSA Office sponsored Telling Your Story, a workshop designed to teach Safe Communities coalitions how to market their programs to foundations, government agencies, businesses, and other organizations that can provide the resources a program needs to become self-sustaining. Thirty-five participants from programs in all six New England states joined representatives from NHTSA and faculty from Education Development Center, Inc., the Safe Communities Program of the Lower Naugatuck Valley, and the Community Alliance for Teen Safety to explore how creative marketing can help programs survive and prosper. For more information, contact Christine Miara at (617) 618-2238 or cmiara@edc.org.