Safe driving contest to help combat distracted driving among Oklahoma teens
NORMAN, Okla. & CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Oklahoma Challenge, a traffic safety program focused on educating young drivers about the dangers of distracted driving, and Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), the world’s largest telematics service provider, have partnered on the Oklahoma Safe Driving Contest, a safe driving competition for teen drivers. The competition incentivizes and rewards young drivers by providing a competitive platform and the opportunity to win money, prizes, and resources for their schools and clubs. The GHSA and the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office are key partners that have made this possible.
“The Oklahoma Challenge is all about youth empowerment. Our goal is to create healthy and safe communities and to help our youth develop effective strategies to enhance road safety,” said Linda Terrell, Executive Director of Educational Alternatives. “The contest with CMT is a creative way to use technology to engage the community, raise teen awareness on the dangers of distracted driving, and make roads safer. We hope everyone will participate.”
The contest runs from March 22, 2023, through May 1, 2023, and offers over $6,000 in prizes. Five top-ranked drivers will win $400, a trophy, and money for their school. The top 25 winners will win $100 each. There will be a random $25 drawing every week. An early-start winner will receive $100 at the end of the first week of the contest, March 25. The contest is for Oklahoma licensed drivers ages 16-22.
“Safe driving contests like Oklahoma Challenge are proven to reduce risky behaviors like distracted driving and speeding and improve road safety. In our first safe driving contest together, we saw remarkable behavior improvements: teens reduced their overall risky driving behaviors significantly,” said Ryan McMahon, CMT’s SVP of Strategy. “Cities, states, and countries around the world have leveraged these contests to help raise awareness of safe driving behaviors. CMT is proud to support this initiative for the second time and provide life-saving technology to teen drivers through our safe driving platform.”
It’s easy to participate in The Oklahoma Challenge Contest. Oklahoma teen drivers just need to download CMT’s DriveWell Go app on the App Store or the Google Play Store and enter their school token. The app automatically analyzes driving behaviors like distraction and speeding and provides insights and feedback.
Hundreds of teens participated in the 2020 Oklahoma Challenge Contest, which ran from October through the end of the year. Risky driving behaviors like speeding and distracted driving dropped during the contest. At their peak, teens reduced their time speeding by over 21% and distracted driving by over 17%. Overall, the contest helped reduce all risky driving behaviors by over 18%.
For more information about The Oklahoma Challenge Contest, please visit https://www.oklahomachallenge.org/safest-driver-app or email info@oklahomachallenge.org.
About The Oklahoma Challenge
The Oklahoma Challenge project began in 1984 to address the dangers of teen drunk driving and encourage young drivers to wear seat belts. Following great success in these areas, Oklahoma Challenge turned its attention to a rising concern – the dire problem of distracted driving, especially among people 15-24 years old. Working in partnership with Oklahoma student groups, Oklahoma Challenge now educates novice drivers about the dangers of engaging in distracting activities – such as texting, talking on the phone, and interacting with passengers – while driving.
Oklahoma Challenge is unique from other initiatives. Not only do we successfully train virtually and/or in-person thousands of Oklahoma middle, high, technical school, and university/college students on traffic safety and gain their personal commitment to drive safely; we also provide supports, motivations, and incentives to empower the students to share this message with their peers, their families, their schools, and their entire community. The outcome of this personal commitment and then expanded sharing of this message is that thousands of additional Oklahomans hear this message in a personal, meaningful way, from people they know and care about, leading not only to newly acquired traffic-safety information, but to true safe driving behavior change. The Oklahoma Challenge’s mailing address is PO Box 6362, Norman, OK, 73070.
About Cambridge Mobile Telematics
Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) is the world’s largest telematics service provider. Its mission is to make the world’s roads and drivers safer. The company’s AI-driven platform, DriveWell®, gathers sensor data from millions of IoT devices — including smartphones, proprietary Tags, connected vehicles, dashcams, and third-party devices — and fuses them with contextual data to create a unified view of vehicle and driver behavior. Companies from personal and commercial auto insurance, automotive, rideshare, smart cities, wireless, financial services, and family safety industries use insights from CMT’s platform to power their risk assessment, safety, claims, and driver improvement programs. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, with offices in Budapest, Chennai, Seattle, Tokyo, and Zagreb, CMT serves millions of people through over 95 programs in 25 countries, including 21 of the top 25 US auto insurers.
Contacts
Media:
Cambridge Mobile Telematics
Matt Fiorentino mfiorentino@cmtelematics.com
