For the fourth consecutive year, Volkswagen is launching its award-winning seat-belt use awareness program dubbed as ‘Fasten Your Seat Belt… Go Far!’, Volkswagen teamed up with Scholastic Corporation, the largest publisher and distributor of children’s books for this supplementary education program that aims to challenge high school students to encourage their peers to use seatbelts by creating their own public service announcements. This program is of great importance since vehicle accidents are now the leading cause of death for young people with more than 5,000 casualties every year. However, many of these deaths could have been prevented since more than half of the teens involved in deadly crashes are not wearing seat belts.

In an informal study by Volkswagen, it was revealed that the reason why many teens don’t wear safety belts is that they view it as “uncool”. Fasten Your Seat Belt… Go Far!, hopes to change teens’ attitude towards car safety, particularly seat belt use by tapping a very powerful tool – peer-to-peer influence. The program will provide interactive educational materials that will also help hone student’s communication and language skills. The resulting public service announcement (PSA) will expectedly feature a wide variety of creative styles and storylines but with emphasis on the message that “Buckling is cool”.

VW and Scholastic will choose eight finalists, with a sole winner grabbing a $12,000 US Savings Bond as price. Runner-ups and teachers of the winners will also receive various prizes. The eight finalists PSAs will also be broadcast on national television.

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