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The initiative will select two pilot sites for the first stage of the effort, in which communities will develop their own approach to this issue with the assistance of the Academy for Educational Development and the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety.

At present, traffic safety initiatives tend to address two poles of the age spectrum - children booster-seat age and below on one end, adults and especially older drivers at the other end. The Tween Traffic Safety Initiative seeks to address the forgotten middle - children 8 to 12 years old. This age group is establishing habits they will carry into their teens and adulthood on a host of activities, from nutrition to physical activity to restraint use. Now, organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are increasingly addressing this population's health outcomes, just as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is beginning its own research on tweens.

NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data for 2002 show that twice as many unrestrained 8 to 15 year olds died in motor vehicle crashes than children from birth through age seven. Yet most countermeasures are focused on child restraint or booster seat use by younger children or on the beginning driver population of older teens.

Enactment and enforcement of child passenger safety and safety belt use laws are the most effective known way to achieve high restraint use levels but enforcement has clearly had a lesser impact on 8 to 15 year olds than on their younger and older counterparts. Education, while generally not effective in getting adults to buckle up, has been highly effective in getting parents and caregivers to move children ages 12 and under from front to rear seating positions.

To date, little is known about the nature of the problem of low restraint usage by 8 to 12 year olds. The Tween Traffic Safety Initiative will identify and test strategic approaches for increasing proper restraint use by this age group.

Currently, the initiative is seeking community partners for the 2005 pilot program. The initiative is offering $30,000 grants to organizations willing to develop and implement their own one-year test program to create tween-focused traffic safety interventions. Grant applications are due October 22.