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WILLIAMSON CO., Ill. - Organizers of the very popular School Traffic Safety Days in Williamson County have announced the upcoming dates for the next event.
Deputy Brian Murrah of the Williamson County Sheriff's Office has forwarded the following:
The 10th Annual Williamson County Traffic Safety Event will be held on March 20-23, 2018. This event is designed to supplement and reinforce classroom and behind-the-wheel instruction for Driver’s Education students. This event uses presentations and active participation to deliver important safe-driving information to the students. Our event is sponsored by local businesses and corporations and the Illinois Department of Transportation, allowing the schools to participate with no cost to the schools or students.
The Pavilion of the City of Marion provides the ideal location for this event, allowing us to set up classroom-style presentations in the ballroom areas and hands-on activities in the exhibition hall. The Pavilion will also allow us to set up outdoor presentations on any part of their forty acres. Copies of the building floor plan and our planned layout will be attached at the end of this document.
Each day is structured like a regular school day, with a new group of students each day. The students are divided into six groups and rotate through the presentations. Lunch is provided. Copies of the daily schedule will be attached at the end of this document.
Through the course of the day, students are exposed to nine different safe-driving presentations and activities during six class periods. The list of presentations follows:
Work Zone Safety – A twenty minute presentation given by the Illinois Department of Transportation covers the hazards and risks of driving through road construction and work zones.
Motorcycle Awareness – The Illinois State Police Motorcycle Enforcement Bureau presents information from a motorcyclist’s perspective on what drivers should be aware of while driving near motorcycles. This is a twenty minute presentation.
Operation Lifesaver – This is a twenty minute railroad-crossing safety presentation, delivered by Illinois Operation Lifesaver.
Distracted Driving – This presentation is delivered by State Farm Insurance. This is a twenty minute classroom-style presentation that covers the dangers of cell phone use while driving.
No-Zone Semi Display – This is a forty minute session sponsored by Thomason Express and Black Diamond Harley Davidson. It combines a presentation on the hazards of vehicle blind spots with active participation of the students. Students will have the opportunity to sit in driver’s seats of semi-trucks and passenger cars that have cars and motorcycles parked in the blind spots. They will experience first-hand what drivers can and cannot see while driving.
Seat Belt Convincer and Roll-Over Simulator – This forty minute presentation by the Illinois State Police and Williamson County Sheriff’s Office combines two pieces of equipment, the Seat Belt Convincer and the Roll-Over Simulator, to demonstrate the importance of seat belts to the students. The students participate with the Seat Belt Convincer by riding the sled down a small incline. The sled stops abruptly, simulating a 5 to 7 MPH crash. The Roll-Over Simulator uses crash test dummies to show what happens to unrestrained occupants during a roll-over crash.
Driving Simulations – The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office, Illinois State Police, and Illinois Department of Transportation will use this forty minute session to demonstrate two safe-driving topics. Students will have the opportunity to drive golf carts and adult-sized tricycles through two different courses. On the first course students drive while wearing Fatal Vision Goggles, which simulate the effects of alcohol impairment. During the second course students will attempt to successfully drive the course while sending text messages on a cell phone. Students will also be able to use a virtual-reality driving simulator to experience another perspective on distracted driving. Other smaller hands-on activities are also located in this area.
Street Smart – This eighty minute presentation, sponsored by Golden Eagle Distributing and Venegoni Distributing, is among the highlights of our event. The Street Smart presentation is given by members of S.A.F.E., a group of firefighter/paramedics from Miami-Dade County, Florida. They have traveled the country teaching people of the hazards of alcohol and drugs, impaired and distracted driving, excessive speed, and the importance of seat belt use. The impact of this presentation on the students is clearly visible. Go to www.safeprogram.com to learn more about this group of presenters.
Agricultural Equipment – The Williamson County Farm Bureau will speak with students during their lunch break about the hazards that are present while driving near agricultural equipment. This is a hands-on activity on the parking lot, and students will have the opportunity to sit in the driver’s seat of several pieces of equipment to get a first-hand experience of the lack of visibility for the driver, as well as the size and scale of the equipment.
The effectiveness of our event is becoming clear. We have used pre- and post-event surveys that measure changes in the students’ attitudes about driving issues to measure our event’s success. We also use direct feedback from students and parents, teachers, schools administrators, and our speakers and sponsors.
The most significant indicator of our event’s effect on young drivers comes from IDOT crash statistics. There will be available a graph showing total crash numbers, sorted into the driver’s age, for crashes that occurred in Williamson County over several years. Our first event took place in 2009. The dramatic decline in crashes among 16 year-old drivers is visible, and can be followed as each age group advances through the following years.
The Williamson County Traffic Safety Days event has proven its ability to affect driver’s education students’ attitudes toward several traffic safety issues over the past four years. We expect our 10th Annual event to continue to reach toward our main goal: Building Better Drivers.