For the fifth year, the PROM Safety Initiative is underway in Mississippi.
PROM, which stands for “Please Return on Monday,” is a campaign by the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services and the Mississippi Highway Patrol urging students to stay safe on prom night.
“Prom is such a special night…and you just don’t want it to end in tragedy,” Allison Lowther, who serves as the MDRS coordinator for the traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury trust fund, said. “So in making those plans, we urge them to make smart choices with those plans. Don’t drink and drive. Don’t text and drive. Do buckle up. Don’t drive distracted. Make those great memories.”
Representatives from MDRS and state troopers will spend the next few months bringing special events to at least 40 schools around the state.
“We talk about what would happen if you survive [an accident]. Are you going to be in a wheelchair? Are you going to have a brain injury? And then to have an actual client who was affected by drinking and driving or texting and driving telling their actual story, it’s powerful to present that to those young adults,” MDRS Executive Director Chris Howard said. “We just want them to be safe.”
According to the National Highway Safety and Traffic Administration, approximately 1,000 people under 21 die each year in “preventable tragedies” while celebrating their high school proms and graduations.
For more information on the PROM Safety Initiative, go to mdrs.ms.gov or call (601)853-5297.
