ESC of Eastern Ohio Awarded $45K for Teen Driver Training

CANFIELD, Ohio – The Educational Service Center of Eastern Ohio on Thursday was awarded a $45,000 grant to help teenagers in low-income families get access to free driver training.

The funds were awarded through Gov. Mike DeWine’s Drive to Succeed Scholarship Program. Throughout the state, 25 agencies will receive a total of $575,000 as part of the program, which was launched in December 2022 to allow eligible teenage drivers to attend driver training classes at no cost to their families.

“Teen driver training courses can cost anywhere from $300 to $600 or more, which can be a huge barrier for some families,” DeWine said. “By increasing accessibility to this important training for teenage drivers, we can better ensure their safety, the safety of their passengers and the safety of others on the road.”

In addition to the Drive to Succeed grant awards, DeWine also awarded a total of $50,000 from the Youthful Driver Safety Fund to five juvenile courts in Allen, Delaware, Licking, Medina and Pickaway counties. The grants will allow the courts to provide juvenile traffic offenders with advanced behind-the-wheel training to improve driving skills and reduce fatal car crashes.

“Every year, traffic crashes claim hundreds of lives in Ohio, and educating our youngest drivers is an important step toward preventing crashes,” said Andy Wilson, director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety. “We are proud that these grants will directly support hundreds of young people who otherwise wouldn’t have had the means to complete driver education and gain the experience needed to become safer drivers.”

Both grant programs are administered by the Ohio Traffic Safety Office within the Ohio Department of Public Safety.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.