The Bradley County Sheriff’s Office hosted “What Do You Consider Lethal” training for various law-enforcement agencies across the eastern part of Tennessee to help combat the high number of teen traffic accidents. Throughout the United States, car crashes are the leading cause of deaths among adolescents, and many of those accidents could have been avoided.
Students against Destructive Decision, (S.A.D.D.), partnered with Bradley County Sheriff Office’s Public Safety Unit to equip law-enforcement officers with training resources to engage teen drivers in high-schools within their communities. The training provided attendees with strategies to help teens recognize the importance of making responsible decisions while driving.
Over 70 (seventy) of these training classes have been taught by Bradley County Sheriff Office’s Public Safety Unit at high-schools within Bradley County. As a result, an estimated 2,000 (two-thousand) students have been the recipient of this training and 1,200 (one-thousand two hundred) students have signed a “Safe Driving Pledge”. When learning that Bradley County was the 8th worst in teen accidents, this training was implemented in Bradley County high-schools by Sheriff Eric Watson through a grant funded by the Tennessee Highway Safety Office.
Sheriff Watson stated, “It’s such a tragedy when parents are informed their child has been severely injured or killed in an automobile accident. The Public Safety Unit has been diligent in educating teen drivers in Bradley County high schools to combat this epidemic. One of the many objectives for Bradley County Sheriff’s Office is to decrease the number of teen automobile accidents in 2017 by educating teen drivers of the risks and consequences of distracted driving and driving under the influence.”
The agencies who participated in the training were Alcoa Police Department, Collegedale Police Department, Signal Mountain Police Department, Red Bank Police Department, Lafollette Police Department, Spencer Police Department, Blount County Sheriff’s Office, Knox County Sheriff’s Office, McMinn County Sheriff’s Office, and Greene County Sheriff’s Office.