How It All Began

Austin Smith was in disbelief. It was October of 2007 and he had just escaped a near-collision with a teenage driver. He shared his frustration and anger with his wife Debby, grumbling about the teen's typical lack of experience and even more enraging, their lack of accountability. Knowing this first hand as their own son would soon be eligible for his license only compounded their concerns.

She called her close friend and former co-worker, Anne London, to share her discomfort. Debby was especially troubled by the limited classroom education, minimal adult driving supervision, and time behind the wheel mandated by the various states. The facts she discovered were alarming:

One in three teen drivers crash in his/her first year driving.
Teens aged 16-19 are four times more likely to crash than the average driver.
Car accidents are the number one killer of 16 to 19 year olds.
38% of teens involved in fatal accidents were speeding.

Believing more could be done to encourage awareness around teen driving safety. and that others shared their concern, Anne and Debby created Steer Straight. Its intent was to foster teen driving accountability, provide peace-of-mind for parents, and help with the transition and development of the new driver to the safe driver.

Borrowing a concept proven to be enormously successful in promoting safety in the commercial trucking arena, they conceived of a membership network that would provide families with reflective bumper stickers to place on a teen’s car asking the critical question: “How's My TEEN Driving?”—along with a toll free number and an individual ID code. The idea was to encourage motorists to call Steer Straight’s live 24/7 response desk to report on risky road behavior or possibly compliment a teen for their actions behind the wheel. Member families would receive an e-mail chronicling the driving behavior (good or bad) and encourage teens to visit the Steer Straight website to review appropriate educational driving tutorials. Steer Straight was on the road and was incorporated in January 2008.

Back Seat Drivers

Anne London and Debby Smith have worked together since 1988, when they were hired by Rupert Murdoch and the FOX Broadcasting Company to help establish the Fox25 TV station as the fourth network in the Boston marketplace. They established the sales, sales support, marketing, promotion, and research departments and educated Boston advertising agencies and businesses about FOX. With FOX emerging as a leader in young adult television, much of their focus was on the teen market.

While Debby left the network in 1996 to raise her two children, Anne left FOX in 1999 to work for another media start up, the Warner Brothers Network (WB) in Boston, also focusing on the teen market. Anne remained at the WB until 2000.

In 2000 Debby and Anne reunited to help launch a charity portal, Charity America (CA). The pair helped establish and maintain strategic alliances. CA featured a website that allowed a donor to search and select nonprofits to whom to donate money, time or items. Debby and Anne formed a partnership between CA and their local ABC affiliate, WCVB, and the program continues to this day.

Anne London

Anne holds a BS from University of Massachusetts and an MS in Communications Management from Simmons College. A mother of three daughters, she has served as an Adjunct Professor in the Marketing Departments for Northeastern University, Boston Massachusetts, and Bentley College, Waltham, MA since 2001.

Debby Smith

Debby graduated from Plymouth State College, Plymouth NH with a BS in Marketing. Since leaving Fox, Debby has volunteered both her time and fundraising skills to the Cotting School in Lexington, MA. Cotting School is a day school for boys and girls ages 3 to 22 with a wide variety of physical, medical, communications and other learning challenges.