THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 6, 1995 TAG: 9504060007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Good news. The Prom Promise custom - initiated in 1990 by Nationwide Insurance and still sponsored by it - is a teen-sobering idea that seems to have caught on. The insurance company reports that nearly 3 million students in 3,500 high schools scattered among 22 states and the District of Columbia will be invited this season to pledge to say no to alcohol and drugs, especially on prom night. Students in more than a score of high schools south of the James River and Hampton Roads and on the Eastern Shore will be among those asked to take the pledge.
The pledge the teens sign could not be clearer: ``I can have a positive influence on my life and the lives of my friends. My decisions are my own. And they are responsible ones. That's why I have decided to be safe and sober. So whether or not I go to prom, I promise not to use alcohol or other drugs. This is a promise I take seriously. It's one I intend to keep, for my sake and the sake of my friends. I'm signing it. I mean it. I'm keeping it.''
Not all who sign it will keep it even if they mean it. But for a time this spring, millions of teens - a large portion of whom tend to think they are impervious to harm - will be challenged to resist peer pressure. They will be asked to choose to vow to be ``safe and sober'' over courting injury and death - for themselves and others - by getting high and behind the wheel.
The rate and number of traffic fatalities nationwide have been declining in recent years, and that includes shrinkage in fatalities linked to drinking and driving. But teen drinking is widespread. Inevitably, drunken driving by teens claims many teens' lives. In 1993, highway crashes killed 3,197 teens. Alcohol was a factor in the demise of 2,217 - enough to make drunken driving a leading cause of death among 16- to 20-year-olds.
Unpretty deaths, too. And then there are thousands of others who survive though disfigured, maimed, incapacitated partly or wholly.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Students Against Drunk Driving, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and parent-teacher-student groups hither and yon also promote safe and sober teen behavior, at proms and on other special occasions and day-to-day. The more who pitch in to help the young behave prudently, the better. The more members of the successive generations who grow up to fulfill their lives' promise, the better for everybody. by CNB