Author visits with schools superintendent

A local family is backing a new book they believe could help save teen lives.

Laura Marchetti has given "3 Keys to Keeping Your Teen Alive" two thumbs up, saying it could be just the kind of manual families need to thoroughly teach their children to drive and survive.

The Marchetti family lost 16-year-old Katie in 2006, when she chose to ride home on Interstate 75 without a seatbelt on. When the crash occurred, she was thrown from the car and killed.

If a child in the United States makes it to 30 years old, odds are he or she will live a long life, author Anne Marie Hayes said. Getting them to 30 is the challenge. Hayes was in town recently to meet with Hillsborough County School Superintendent Mary Ellen Elia. Hayes hopes to distribute her book to all sophomores next school year.

Since Katie Marchetti's death, her family has worked tirelessly to promote seatbelt use among teens and get the word out on other driving issues.

The Valrico girl's story is included in Hayes' book, which Marchetti calls a "blueprint to safe driving practices."

Hayes, whose own daughter recently turned 16, said she focused her attention on teen driving after learning that so many young people lose their lives in automobile crashes. In 99 percent of those crashes, there was driver error, she said. And in most, no alcohol or drugs contributed.

"It's gotten so bad that the Centers for Disease Control has even labeled teen driving deaths an epidemic," Hayes said. "If you start working with them early and really get them to practice, it can make a huge difference." The book includes rules and lessons to go over with teens before they ever get behind the wheel, ways to coach them from the passenger seat, videos to show them how to practice certain driving skills.

Experts agree that teens need about 100 hours of structured driver training before they get out there on their own, Hayes said.

Her book offers 25 lessons that can be done over a year's time, with teens and their parents working together.

The three keys, she said, are actively involved parents, need-to-know information and structured practice.

"3 Keys to Keeping Your Teen Alive" should be available for purchase in May.

Meanwhile, Hayes has a website and a nonprofit foundation, called Teens Learn to Drive, at teenslearntodrive.com. The book is already available on the website.

"My goal is to get people to look at how we train drivers and increase the practice time teens get," Hayes said. "It's huge, too, the example parents set."

Dianne Sipe, Katie's grandmother, said she endorses the book because she believes it really can help keep more teens alive.

"What impressed me so much about [Hayes] is that she gets it," Sipe said. "A lot of teens and parents don't get it that risky behavior is one of the reasons why we don't live to a late age.

"We need to take ownership of our lives. She is vested in her child like Laura was vested in her daughter. She can help parents and she can help teens," Sipe said of Hayes.

Laura Marchetti said she was very verbal when teaching her daughter to drive, including pounding it into her head that she should always wear a seat belt. But there was not a good manual the two could share. "3 Keys to Keeping Your Teen Alive," is that manual, she said.

"Sometimes, when you are reading it together ... it sinks in more," Marchetti said.

"When our children turn 16, we know how to hit the panic button. We don't always know what to do after that."

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