December 17, 2024 - 2:53pm -- hoyt.88@osu.edu

Twenty-three students representing Conneaut, Jefferson, Edgewood, Geneva, Grand Valley, and Pymatuning Valley High Schools met Friday, December 13th at Jefferson Area High School for the inaugural meeting of the S.M.A.S.H. (Students Making a Safer Highway) program.

S.M.A.S.H. students strive to save lives by educating fellow students on the dangers of impaired driving, distracted driving, speeding and failure to wear a seatbelt through programs they create and subsequently present to their respective high schools with the overall goal to prevent the loss of life due to careless acts of drivers of youthful drivers 23 years old and under. After seeing the success of the program in Trumbull County, Sandy Pulsifer with Safe Communities and Lt. Timothy Grimm of the Ohio State High Patrol Ashtabula Post approached Jenna Hoyt with Ohio State University Extension, to bring the program started in 2012 in Trumbull County, to Ashtabula County to help high-school juniors and seniors educate their peers about driver safety.

S.M.A.S.H. representatives were selected by their school district to serve as role models for peers and schools and will meet monthly December-May to hear local traffic safety stories and plan two unique programs/projects for their school. Students focus their programs around the top four causes of traffic crashes; seatbelts, impaired driving, distracted driving, and speeding and learn more about each of these pillars throughout the program.

Guided by a strong group of advisors representing various safety and youth development programs, representatives from each school are responsible for one in school peer to peer program/project as well as assisting with Prom Promise in April at SPIRE. Although the advisors and resource officers can give advice and help make connections, the representatives from each school will be the primary creators of the spring school S.M.A.S.H. programs. Students may choose to organize an assembly, simulation, create posters, appear on a broadcast or create another opportunity for their peers. The advisors are excited to see the activities students decide to do in their schools and is proud to have the support of the High School Principals, School Resource Officers, County Commissioners, April Daniels – Clerk of Courts, County Sheriff, and the Ohio Department of Public Safety.