GEORGIA
Chick-fil-A Teen Safe Driving Program

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

Occupant safety issues have proven to be a very significant problem facing teen motorists and the general public who use Georgia roadways. While teen drivers ages 15 to 20 comprise 6.7 percent of the driving population, they are involved in 14 percent of the fatal crashes. Sixty percent of teen drivers ages 16 to 20 that died in crashes were not wearing a seat belt. 

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

In 1997, the Duluth Police Department partnered with Duluth High School and a local Chick-fil-A restaurant, to combat the rising death and injuries of teen driving. The program uses a reward system for belted teen drivers.

Through this program, all public services of the county or jurisdiction arrive at a local high school prior to the release of students for the day. Public safety officials stand at or near the exits of the parking lot and handout Chick-fil-A food coupons to all belted drivers and passengers. If a driver or passenger is not belted, the occupants of the vehicle are warned but no citations are given. A follow-up program allows officers to stand at the same location on a different day and issue citations for non-compliance of the belt laws.

This approach was designed to enforce consistent use of seat belts among teen drivers and occupants through the following objectives:

• conduct Chick-fil-A programs in all 27 counties that have a Chick-fil-A;
• empower 72 Law enforcement agencies to partner with the corporate sponsor;
• encourage all 121 Chick-fil-A stores to actively participate at the checkpoints;
• track the progress of coupon distribution and checkpoint locations; and

• reduce the number of injuries and deaths to teen drivers resulting from non-compliance with seat belt laws.

STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES

In 1998, the Duluth Police Department asked the entire public safety community of Gwinnett County to participate in the public awareness campaign. This included seven law enforcement agencies, high school student governments, fire and emergency personnel, as well as the participating Chick-fil-A restaurant.

The following year, the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety implemented this program throughout the state. The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and Chick-fil-A developed a training manual for program participants. This training manual included restaurant locations, store manager contact information, law enforcement contact numbers, checkpoint reporting forms, sample press releases, stories and pictures of previous checkpoints, and a floppy disk containing the entire training manual for electronic distribution.  

Through this project, each local law enforcement agency is required to:

• monitor and report checkpoint activities by fax or email;
• create community partnerships with emergency and law enforcement personnel; 
• and create student government partnerships with the community and public safety officials.

RESULTS