Operation Drive Smart Receives Highest Honor
During the annual Georgia Chiefs of Police Conference in Savannah the Dr. Curtis McClung Award was presented to Chief Randall Belcher, Duluth Police Department, for Operation Drive Smart (ODS). This first place award is given to the law enforcement agency whose program is highly effective and most recognized throughout the State. There were over 40 applications submitted for consideration. Three Police Agencies; Georgia State University, City of Douglasville and the City of Duluth were chosen as finalists for their programs.
Operation Drive Smart was initiated because the number one killer of our teenagers between the ages of fourteen (14) and nineteen (19) is automobile accidents. Since 2000, Duluth Police Department personnel of the Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS) have presented the program to more than one-hundred-thousand high school students statewide. The program consists of four phases; the Drive Smart Expo, the In a Split Second Program, Classroom Instruction and Guest Speakers. The Operation Drive Smart Expo is a one day educational program set up on high school campus; and involve various law enforcement, fire officials, EMS and Emergency Medicine personnel, all of whom provide instruction pertaining to their component in a motor vehicle crash response. In a Split Second, is a scripted week long program involving a teen DUI crash which results in a fatality and ends with a mock funeral. Students act as reporters and broadcast to the school body on closed circuit TV. Police Officers provide classroom instruction in: Teen DUI’s, Seat Belt Safety, proper driving techniques and Georgia Teen Driving Laws.
Just in 2008, Operation Drive Smart has been to seventeen (17) high schools thereby teaching 19,623 students. Thanks to the Chief of Police and his staff for developing and presenting Operation Drive Smart to over a hundred thousand students. For more information on this program contact Liz Strickland at 678-475-3521.