Oprah hasn't called me yet, but I wish she would. JourneySafe needs national exposure now more than ever. I know the program is effective. When CNN and E!Networks aired their JourneySafe segments, we received hundreds of emails from teens and parents wanting more information on how to bring JourneySafe to their communities.

But if Oprah isn't on your speed-dial here's what else you can do to help:

1. Have your company distribute the JourneySafe booklet to all employees with teen drivers, like Pepsi Bottling Group did as part of their employee health event.

2. Coordinate a JourneySafe presentation at your high school and middle schools.

3. Work with the school or district administration to get the JourneySafe program into the high school Health class curriculum or driver education class.

4. Check into your company's philanthropy program and sell them on becoming a JourneySafe corporate sponsor. Imagine if just three of the largest hospitals in Southern California: MemorialCare, St. Joseph Health System and UCI Medical Center, became corporate sponsors how far our reach could extend.

And in the meantime if you know Oprah, have her call me to talk about JourneySafe and the national public health crisis claiming the lives of our teens: car crashes.

I welcome your comments.

-David

San Clemente High School Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) awarded local insurance agent, Lisa Newell, with a Very Special Person Award, May 12, 2009, for her continued financial support of the PTSA's Parent Education and JourneySafe program. Each year Newell makes a donation to the PTSA for its work in promoting teen driver safety on campus using the JourneySafe program materials and philosophy. SCHS was the first public school to promote the JourneySafe concepts on campus and continues to educate its parents and students about teen driver and passenger safety.

A big thank you to the Angels Baseball Foundation for the generous grant monies awarded to JourneySafe in support of our efforts in extending the JourneySafe outreach program into Orange County, CA, high schools.
We applaud the Angels Baseball Foundation's commitment to young people and especially for helping us continue to promote teen driver and passenger safety.

Rest in Peace Zac & Mark

Our hearts go out to the families and friends of Mark Motley, 18, and Zachary Raffety, 17, who lost their lives in a tragic, senseless, solo car crash on April 7, 2009.

This is a sad reminder, to all of us at JourneySafe, that our work, unfortunately, continues to be necessary.

Please "Remember the 5" and always JourneySafe on the roads. Take your responsibility as a driver and as a passenger seriously.

1. Buckle up.
2. Slow down.
3. Turn off your cell and don't text!
4. Limit your passengers and distractions.
5. Find your voice and speak out if you feel unsafe.

Protect yourself, your friends and others. Be a safe driver and a smart passenger.

As the world's largest manufacturer and distributor of Pepsi products, The Pepsi Bottling Group knows that safe driving every day is fundamental to its business. PBG's "Healthy Living" and "360 Degrees of Safety" programs encourage employees and their families to be healthy and safe at home, work, and play, and JourneySafe's mission is a natural extension of that philosophy.

Currently, there are thousands of teens who are part of the PBG family. The Pepsi Bottling Group recognizes that JourneySafe's message could very well save one of those lives this year. That is why PBG is proud to become a corporate sponsor of the JourneySafe organization, by means of an annual grant to support the goal of encouraging teens to take an active role in their own driving safety.

"We are proud and grateful to have the support of Pepsi Bottling Group, as JourneySafe continues to educate teens and their families about the importance of teen driving safety," said David Sabet, founder of the Gillian Sabet Memorial Foundation and JourneySafe program.

California and other states, aware that cell phone use while driving is a dangerous distraction, have enacted hands-free laws. While sales of bluetooth and other hands-free devices have soared the usefulness of hands-free technology has been largely ignored. Until now.

A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology:Applied determined that hands-free devices are just as distracting as holding a cell phone to your ear. The reaction time of drivers aged 18 to 49 slowed to the same level as drivers over age 65. Bottom line - it makes no difference so who are we kidding?

This is not the first study to provide such results and will not be the last; ultimately we have to make the decisions, as responsible drivers, to turn our cell phones off while driving.

I welcome your responses.

David Sabet

Despite the knowledge that driving while distracted is dangerous the vast number of crashes involving teen drivers are directly related to inattention or distraction. The cell phone is perhaps the greatest source of distraction and despite laws such as we have in California prohibiting teens from using any electronic device, common sense indicates these prohibitions may be largely ignored.

Researchers at the University of Utah are developing a device incorporated into the car key which would block a teen's ability to make cell phone calls or text message. Remember, automobile crashes are the leading cause of teen death and the fifth leading cause of all deaths in the country.

Willpower is a hit and miss proposition for most of us. This new device and the others certainly to follow will, in my opinion, make a tremendous improvement in the driving environment. While some teens will perceive this as an invasion of their privacy or an expression of lack of parental trust I feel strongly that we should be embracing such new technology. Few would argue that air-bags and anti-lock brakes are intrusive or judgemental and fewer would argue that these devices have not saved lives.

If I don't have cookies in the house, I can't eat them. And if I can't text while driving, I'll get over it - and so, hopefully, will our teens.

I welcome your response.

David

On September 9th San Clemente High School kicked off the new school year with a renewed emphasis on teen driver safety. Approximately 150 junior students received a much-coveted provisional parking pass at the school's lottery drawing but, in order for them to receive a permanent parking sticker they were required to attend the school-sponsored safe driving class featuring our JourneySafe presentation.

Principal George Duarte and PTSA program chairwoman Trudy Podobas, were instrumental in creating this "first of its kind" program involving JourneySafe. It is evident that the SCHS community, once again, is at the forefront of providing teens with the tools they need to keep themselves safe.

Orange County, California has not been spared its share of the edpidemic of teen driving-related death yet many schools seem to pretend this crisis does not exist. In a county with 3 million residents isn't there even more reason to be addressing this problem early and often?

I urge and challenge the administrations of our local high schools, school districts and PTSAs to act boldly and decisively. Bring JourneySafe to your schools, incorporate it constructively into the school culture and use it as a tool to save lives.

How hard can that be?

I look forward to your comments.

David Sabet

I had the honor and pleasure of speaking to over 300 students and parents at University High School in Irvine, California on October 6th. The PTSA headed by Rita Lakhanpal, and Juli Tsang, program chairwoman organized the event and Irvine Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Gwen Gross and Vice Principal Saul Gleser were there to show their support.

Immediately after the presentation University High School decided to include our "Remember the 5" tips in their homecoming dance invitations as a quick way to get the word out to their students. They plan to include the JouneySafe program in their curriculum and to make it a focus for their ASB student government and other student organizations.

We applaud University High School for their support of teen driving safety and urge every High School in Orange County to adopt this type of proactive activity. I welcome your comments.

David Sabet

We are pleased to announce the new, comprehensive JourneySafe DVD that has all our JourneySafe materials, including reproducible flyers and handouts as well as video clips from our segment on E! Network, our PSAs (video ads) and most importantly our powerful JourneySafe Story and JourneySafe Presentation.

If you purchased a JourneySafe manual in the past and would like this new easy-to-use DVD, please contact us with your name and address and we will send you-for no charge-a copy of our new DVD. Finally, one look at our calendar of events for the fall and you can see that we are very busy making presentations at a variety of events.

Although the days get shorter and the air a bit crisper, and the wonder of change is all around it is still difficult for us to embrace the season and its wonders without our Jill and Jonathan. But, we move forward, enjoying time with Jason and hoping that, along the way, our JourneySafe efforts might save teen lives.

Please remember to JourneySafe.

Our heartfelt thanks to all of you who have continued your support of JourneySafe through your financial contributions this year! We trust you realize that your financial support has been a worthy investment in the effort to reduce teen automobile fatalities as you can see from all that is currently happening with JourneySafe. We are looking into ideas for another "official" fundraiser in the near future, however, the overwhelming work of meeting all of our speaking engagements and simply "building" the program left us without the energy or manpower necessary to promote a 2008 walk-a-thon.

Without the constant emotional and financial support of the many individuals and families who continue to believe in and help sustain JourneySafe without regard for publicity or overt recognition, we could never have accomplished all that we have so far. We appreciate you all so much.

We also especially want to thank the friends and family members of Mike and Mary Russell for the contributions made to JourneySafe in loving memory of Marc Russell. Marc lost his life in a motorcycle accident on July 8, 2008. He was a very dear friend of Jill's and we send our deepest sympathies, our love and sincere thanks to his family for designating our foundation as a recipient of contributions "in lieu of flowers." Marc will be forever beloved and remembered by our family and many others here in San Clemente where he grew up.

Two very special young people deserve special recognition at this time for their incredible work on behalf of JourneySafe and teen driver and passenger safety awareness. It means a great deal for us to announce that these two amazing young women are working on our behalf from all the way across the country-in New York and Pennsylvania!

A middle school student from New York, Julia, and her family discovered JourneySafe through our JourneySafe email "Pass it On" campaign. Jill's story and the problem of teen driver and passenger safety truly resonated with Julia, and young as she is, she took it to heart and was determined to do something in her community to help spread the message.

Julia made JourneySafe her "project" of the year. She made display boards, key chains, bumper stickers and other materials promoting JourneySafe that she and her family handed out to many teens, parents, and members of their local community in New York. Julia and her family took it even further by promoting JourneySafe at her older brother's high school.

Out of the kindness of their hearts and inspired by simple compassion and concern for teens like themselves, they covered the costs of all the printing and creating these materials and supplies and then generously donated every penny they collected from selling their materials to the GSMF JourneySafe program.

We would also like to recognize and thank Lindsay Rowley, a student from Misericordia University in Pennsylvania. Lindsay is a talented young musician and songwriter who co-wrote, with a friend, and performed a memorial tribute song for teens killed in car crashes. Lindsay lost a dear friend in a senseless car crash, who was her inspiration.

Her song "Loved Forever" had been on YouTube for some time. Lindsay recently contacted us for permission to update her music video in order to include facts and statistics from the JourneySafe website and specifically our "Remember the Five" tips. Please take a moment to watch Lindsay's music video and encourage her to continue her efforts to "make an impact" as her song suggests.

Thank you to Julia and her family and Lindsay for helping spread the JourneySafe message. We can't begin to tell you how grateful we are for your compassion and for taking a personal interest in our cause. We believe that if more young people like yourselves made a similar personal investment in this cause, we could one day realize our primary goal to reduce the number of automobile related fatalities--the number one cause of teen deaths in America.

Watch Lindsay's music video Loved Forever below or on YouTube

The Sabet family and the JourneySafe program will be included in a special report on prom night dangers: "THS Investigates - Prom Nightmares" on the E! network. The episode premiered in May and re-airs often. Check your local listings for showtimes. Remeber to set Your Tivo or DVR!

A big thank you to all of you who have participated in what's now become our "Pass it On" campaign. In our last newsletter, you may recall, we asked you to watch our JourneySafe presentation video and "pass it on" to your friends and family, especially those with teen drivers. We have received comments from people all over the country thanking us for sharing our story but more importantly asking for more information and ideas on how they can bring JourneySafe to their communities.

If you aren't among the more than 100,000 who have watched our video yet, please take a moment and do so and then be sure to "pass it on" to all the young drivers in your lilfe (and the old drivers too who need reminding to turn off the cell and not drive distracted!)

Many of you have written to us wondering about plans for our next walk-a-thon fundraiser. We are so very appreciative of your support and hope that when the time comes for our next big fundraiser we can depend on you to help out. However, at this time we have had to put a hold on another fund raising event. The day-to-day business of the JourneySafe organization and the presentation of our program is taking up all of our time. We are averaging 8-10 speaking engagements per month and that number is growing as word spreads about our program. On top of that we are continuing to update the website, research and write grants, (for financial help in support of our efforts) and are personally responding to all inquiries for more information about our program. As you can imagine that leaves us little extra time to begin the huge undertaking of a Walk-A-Thon at this time. We are considering a fundraiser for sometime in the coming fall, but we have no definite plans as to what that would look like.

So, instead of orchestrating the huge event a walk-a-thon is, we are humbly asking each of you to consider JourneySafe in your charitable donation giving this year. Your contribution will help us to continue to spread the JourneySafe message and program. We are a fiscally conservative 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in which 98% of all funds received go directly toward advancing the goals of the JourneySafe program and the Gillian Sabet Memorial Foundation. Click here for more info.

As always, we thank you and are grateful for your support of JourneySafe.

Students at San Clemente High School got a little something extra in their winter formal invitations this year. The SCHS Associated Student Body included the JourneySafe "Remember the 5" tips to survive as a safety reminder to their peers attending the dance. The SCHS ASB plans to continue these safety service announcements in their prom invitations and are planning other projects to promote JourneySafe on campus.

"This is an easy way for schools to begin promoting the JourneySafe program," said Ron Pirayoff, ASB Director at SCHS. "I applaud my student leaders who, after viewing the JourneySafe video, felt compelled to begin educating their peers on the ways to keep them safe on the roads."

JourneySafe congratulates SCHS, its ASB and administration for its support and for being the first high school to promote the JourneySafe message in such a creative way and for including a JourneySafe link on the ASB activities section of the school website.

When we first started JourneySafe, I thought we'd have our door busted down by the Insurance, Healthcare and Automobile industries, all anxious to partner with us to spread the JourneySafe program in an effort to save teen lives. Other than generous support from my medical colleagues, local hospitals and local auto dealerships, the Healthcare and Automotive industries have been slow to become involved and I'm at a loss as to the reason why.

It is hard to imagine how this national public health crisis -- 6,000 teens die each year in car crashes -- doesn't seem to be on their corporate philanthropy radar screens.

While I don't believe that these industries are against teen driving safety, it is ever more clear to me that they need a stronger urging from us to step forward and support JourneySafe.

The one shining light in all of this is that AllState Insurance has been our strongest corporate supporter, to date, and has expressed continued willingness to assist us with our goals. For this, we are extremely grateful for without their generous underwriting support, we wouldn't have been able to afford to produce our video and manual, award scholarships to deserving young people, or keep our website up and running.

But, it will take many more corporations to help us save teen lives and this is where you come in.