Effort on to make rural kids drive safely

Loose gravel, soft shoulders and slow-moving farm machinery — those are three reasons why drivers have to be more careful on rural roads. A series of rural roadway safety courses is being launched this month that targets Iowa’s rural middle and high school students. There will be an education course on the hazards of driving rural roads and a seatbelt check.Lynne Yontz is a spokeswoman for the project through Farm Safety 4 Just Kids and the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau. Yontz says new rural drivers need to be trained a little differently from city kids, since the different setting brings different lifestyles and hazards.More than half of all fatal vehicle crashes are in rural areas. Yontz says the programs are being organized by the students themselves and will be held in F-F-A and 4-H classes in at least nine rural communities.The courses are already scheduled in: Akron, Algona, Brooklyn, Durant, Earlham, Edgewood, Eldridge, Red Oak and Wilton. For more information, call 800-423-KIDS.