Highway safety grant funded for another year

Program aimed at severely cutting teen driver fatalities, accidents

Now that high school is back in full session, one piece of local education that doesn’t show up on a stat sheet – but which is just as important as any academic subject – is the Highway Safety Grant Program. Launched in 1993 by the South Carolina Department of Public Safety, the intent is to show as many area high-school students as possible the dangers of impaired driving, aggressive driving, and distracted driving – and exactly what can happen when they look away from the road for even two seconds. “This program for all Spartanburg District high schools,” said Spartanburg County coroner Rusty Clevenger, a longtime supporter of student driver safety. “Every year, I am called to a crash or wreck site involving a student who was driving impaired. And I am hoping through this program to change that.”