March 28, 2024
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MDI nonprofit group forms to educate young drivers

SOUTHWEST HARBOR – Three students from Mount Desert Island Regional High School died last year in automobile accidents. For the friends and families of these victims, the triple tragedy was too much to endure quietly.

So veteran Southwest Harbor firefighter Rob Geyser and a group of concerned parents and community members on the island have founded an organization called Citizens Against Reckless Drivers to educate and protect inexperienced drivers on Mount Desert Island.

CARD will hold its first meeting of the year tonight at the high school.

“This is a result of too many motor vehicle accidents involving young people in Maine,” Geyser said Wednesday. “People need to start paying attention to what they’re doing behind the wheel.”

So CARD is promoting driving contracts, formal documents signed by parents and their teen-age children that set rules for using the family car, and the consequences that will result if rules are ignored. Typically, parents and children pledge to follow the same rules.

“Moms and dads have to sign a contract as well,” Geyser said. “Our children do things because it’s learned behavior. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Sample contracts will be provided at CARD meetings. The contracts include such provisions as wearing seat belts, not drinking alcohol or using drugs before driving and informing parents of all encounters with the police. But the contract’s exact language and any consequences should be negotiated individually by families, Geyser said.

The group also hopes to begin a database of young drivers whose vehicles will be identified by CARD bumper stickers, each with a unique driver identification number. If the teen is driving recklessly, fellow drivers can report his or her behavior.

Like the “How’s My Driving?” bumper stickers required by many trucking companies, the stickers will give young drivers a heightened awareness of their performance on the road, Geyser said.

Calls will go to a CARD office in Southwest Harbor, which will be staffed occasionally. More frequently, the calls will be directed from the office to one of five cell phones held by CARD members in the community.

CARD volunteers will take the driver identification number from the anonymous caller, then match it to a name in the organization’s database and call the driver’s parents, Geyser said. Information provided by callers will be confidential and will not be provided to police or posted publicly.

If local parents show interest, the system could be up and running by late fall, Geyser said.

Similar young-driver contracts have been used successfully by organizations in Virginia, and bumper-sticker information programs have been used to identify inexperienced drivers in California, he said.

Eventually, Geyser hopes CARD will become a statewide, or even nationwide, program in partnership with schools and law enforcement agencies.

CARD plans to approach the Mount Desert Island Regional High School trustees about requiring the CARD sticker in lieu of a campus parking pass.

An MDI high senior currently sits on CARD’s board of directors. Geyser, however, hopes to draw more teen members.

“It’s about peer pressure,” he said. “If kids see another teen-ager involved, they might be more likely to support it.”

CARD will hold its organizational meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at Mount Desert Island Regional High School. For more information, Call Geyser at 244-7388.


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