Campaigns to keep busy roads safe

If you had to guess what time of the year is the most grim in terms of fatal crashes on the highways, you might venture that it's the New Year's holiday.

Yet the busy Thanksgiving travel season is also a dangerous time to be on the roads. Six people were killed in northern Illinois in traffic crashes during last year's Thanksgiving season, according to the Illinois State Police. In all of the state, 20 people were killed in crashes in the 2006 five-day Thanksgiving holiday season.

To keep people from having to make a stop in the emergency room on their way to their Thanksgiving family gatherings, the state police and local police are stepping up patrols. They are looking that much harder for motorists who are driving drunk, speeding or not wearing their seat belts.

Just another good reason to drive sober and with all respect for other traffic laws designed to prevent motorists from committing vehicular manslaughter.

Many who will be on the roads this holiday season are at high risk of getting in a crash -- teenagers. Car crashes are the leading cause of death for this age group, exceeding disease, guns or drugs, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

But this week a new initiative was launched in Illinois to help teenagers help themselves to become better drivers.

The state has partnered with Ford Motor Co. in "Operation Teen Safe Driving." This program invites high school students to participate in devising their own campaigns aimed at encouraging peers to adopt good driving habits. Schools will compete among each other for the best safe-driving campaigns.

We would think teens might be ready to have a voice in improving their driving records, given the number of laws aimed at teen drivers that have been passed in Illinois in recent years.

There is a graduated licensing system that phases in full driving privileges for young drivers. The amount of time a teen must spend behind the wheel before receiving his or her license has been doubled.

Teen drivers can't have more than one passenger in their vehicles for the first six months after receiving a license. Drivers under 18 can't use cell phones while behind the wheel.

All good laws. They are saving lives.

But just maybe teen drivers have ideas of their own that don't require action in Springfield, but could be adopted by their high school through Operation Teen Safe Driving.

The new program has great potential. According to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's office, a similar school-based campaign is credited for helping save lives in downstate Tazewell County. Before the campaign, 15 teens in that county had been killed in crashes during 2005 and 2006. No teen from Tazewell County has lost his or her life on the roads since the launch of the campaign.