ABOUT US

It Won't Happen To Me was founded by Bill Richardson and Lauren Winborne.  It began as a community project while Bill was a police officer with the Gwinnett County Police Department in Georgia.  During his 25 years as a police officer in Gwinnett County, Georgia, Bill witnessed the tragedy of teenage driving fatalities.   At the same time Lauren Winborne, a mother of six children was researching teenage driving throughout the country and began to interview parents of teens who had died in car crashes.   Through one of the parents Lauren and Bill met and discovered that they shared the same vision.  It Won't Happen To Me was formed as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation with a specific goal to reduce teen driving fatalities.  Because these deaths usually are caused by inexperience and the unsafe driving habits of our young drivers, IWHTM seeks to educate teens and their parents.

We spread this message primarily through presentations to schools, churches, community organizations and court systems.  Since 2005 we have spoken to over 50,000 teens and parents throughout the Southeast and in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.  (Our DVD has been shown to over 70,000 students and parents in Colorado and Wyoming where it has also been featured on the news.)  What began as a modest local venture is now becoming a national initiative.

The typical presentation consists of:

• introduction of the program concentrating on decision making
• a stirring video set to contemporary teenage music;
• discussion of specific case studies;
• analysis and recommendations by Bill and Lauren of the bad decisions that caused these crashes.
• Q&A

The presentations can be extraordinarily powerful.  Auditoriums of hundreds of noisey and distracted students become quiet and focused during each presentation.

While most of our presentations are during school hours and limited to teenagers, some of our most effective presentations are made at night when parents join the students.  Many of the lessons in these presentations are geared toward how parents can help their teenagers become safer drivers.

The presentation is supplemented by a powerful book.  This book features teens from around the country that have lost their lives in car crashes.  The book is designed to reach students of all socio-economic groups, races and religions.  Any teenager in the country is able to pick up this book and find someone who has been killed in a car crash who looks like a friend or themselves.

Our goal is not only to reduce the number of teen deaths in car crashes but to change the mind set of teens and their parents that tragedies like this can happen to anyone. 

• If you or someone you know has lost a teen in a teen driving related car crash and would like to have them featured in our book, please contact us.
• We welcome the opportunity to speak to your school, church or community organization.  So far we have presented primarily in the southeast and have recently expanded to other regions of the country. 
• We welcome contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations who want to make a difference in teenage driving.