Local Schools Buckle Down on Drunk Driving - from Millerton News March 18th.

Millerton News

PINE PLAINS — Call it a competition. Call it an awareness project. Call it a bit of both. One thing is for sure: Pine Plains’ “Battle of the Belts” competitions are school-wide events.

Battle of the Belts is part of Sean’s Run, an annual event started nine years ago to increase awareness of the problems related to underage drinking and impaired driving. Sean’s Run, a 5K run/walk, is held in conjunction with a one-mile youth race, a tribute to victims and survivors of accidents involving impaired drivers and a prevention education expo.

Battle of the Belts consists of four-person teams duking it out to see who can strap on a seat-belt the fastest. Each of the four team members has to strap themselves into all four seats in the front and back of a vehicle and the teams can’t rotate to the next seat until all members have buckled in.

It’s a competition that’s a lot of fun, but also points out how quick and easy it is to buckle your seat belt. Auto accidents are the number one killer of teenagers, the Sean’s Run Web site explains, and two-thirds of teens who perish in car wrecks were not wearing seat belts.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, the Pine Plains chapter of SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving) held qualifying trials for the main event, to be held on the same day as Sean’s Run in Chatham on April 25. The top middle school and high school teams would qualify for the Chatham event, which is touted as the sports’ “national championships.”

Participation in the event at Pine Plains has been consistently high during the last four years that SADD has held the competition, explained the chapter’s president, senior Erin Dorozynski. This year nine high school teams and 24 middle schools took to the parking lot in front of the Stissing Mountain building, everyone looking to out-buckle the competition.

SADD has about 20 active members in grades 9 through 12, Dorozynski said. They hold a variety of events throughout the year, including, most recently, a carnival beach party for the third, fourth and fifth graders from Seymour Smith and Cold Spring Elementary.

The school group even has an operating budget of sorts thanks to a $500 grant from First Niagra Bank. It allows SADD to pay for expenses related to its activities, such as registration fees for Sean’s Run. Last year 32 of Pine Plains’ finest went to Chatham, and hopefully the real message got and continues to get across to the school.

“It’s not just a competition,” Dorozynski repeated. “It’s to prove a point that the split second it takes to buckle a seat belt could make a difference.”

Students at Stissing Mountain Middle/High School have certainly proven themselves adept at that. For the past three years a Pine Plains team has placed second in the senior high division at Chatham. The school’s best time of 32 seconds is only a split second off from the world record.

It’s that mix of serious subject matter being presented in a way that will appeal to teenagers that makes SADD such a successful group. Its impact reaches throughout the hallways and classrooms in the Pine Plains Central School District and beyond.

“The elementary school kids love it,” Dorozynski said. “The parents in the community are really grateful for what we do. It’s one of the biggest clubs in school, so it’s definitely nice to see it supported.”