Final Thoughts

As this competition comes to a close, we would like to present you with a video, recapping some of our thoughts.




Thank you to everyone who followed us on this journey!

Newspaper Article

In the most recent issue of 'The Royal Page', our HHS 'Keep the Drive' Club was featured in an article. HERE IT IS

Patrick Jon Buggy, junior, doesn’t care if you drive cautiously. He doesn’t want to tell people how to live their lives. As president of Keep the Drive Club, however, he wants students to realize the risks they take when they’re behind the wheel.

Keep the Drive Club is a group started by Buggy to promote safer driving habits amongst HHS students. “It’s a lot more important for teens to be aware than cautious. Think about it in terms of safety: Students don’t want to be hurting others,” said Buggy.

Keep the Drive Club is relatively new to HHS. Buggy started the club at the end of the 2007-2008 school year to raise awareness about the things students can do to protect themselves as drivers. The club struggled with spreading its message last year but has found more success by developing demonstrations and projects with blatant reminders of what can happen if teens don’t drive intelligently.

One of the most successful demonstrations occurred before winter break. The club blocked off 14 parking spaces in the student lot with crime scene tape to represent the 14 teen drivers that die each day in accidents across America. Students acknowledged the demonstration in numbers previously unseen to club. “Hopefully, we influenced teens’ driving habits that day,” said club member Luc Rouffaud, junior.

Buggy cites that day as one of the most successful in club history but wishes that more students would recognize the club’s work. “We have had some impact and our message has been out there,” said Buggy, “but I’m not sure if the student body has heard it.”

One way the club has expounded on its’ message is by making the club more visible. The club has dabbled with a blog, updating followers on upcoming events such as the drunk driving exhibition held on April 27 at HHS. “We’re basically trying to raise awareness about how students can protect themselves while raising awareness about issues surrounding drunk driving,” said club member Jack Anderson, junior.

After the club’s experimentation, Buggy thought that Keep the Drive was prepared to venture into competition. With the aid of the club’s vice president, Nate Guggenberger, junior, Buggy developed an activities plan that the group would undertake and submitted it to the Act Out Loud Competition, a contest pitting schools’ promotions of safe driving efforts against each other. Sixty-four schools initially submitted plans to the competition, and HHS was selected as one of twenty national finalists in late March.

Despite all the work Keep the Drive has done, Guggenberger sees an opportunity for HHS to better understand the risks involved with driving. “There is always room to get better. Fourteen teens die every day in car accidents and you don’t want that to be one of your friends,” said Guggenberger.

Survey Results!

During our day of activities last week, our club had people fill out surveys regarding driving statistics.
About 200 people filled out our survey

What we found out was shocking.

• 80% of drivers admit to driving over the speed limit

• 65% of drivers have texted or talked on their cell phones while driving(on a side note, a new law was passed in MN, so texting is ILLEGAL behind the wheel, regardless of age or experience! Talking on the phone is illegal for minors, unless it is a 911 emergency call)

• 63% have danced to their favorite song while driving

When asked about their friends driving, we found some interesting information as well

• almost half of all surveyed wish their friends would slow down

• OVER half of those surveyed wish they would Keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road, as well as to be more 'in control' of the car

We found it very interesting that so many of the drivers speed, while they also wish their friends would slow down.

Your perspective of driving changes when you aren't the one behind the wheel, doesn't it?