Hope Elizabeth Shaffer

Tragically, fifteen-year-old Hope Elizabeth Shaffer, was killed in a rear-end collision on January 15, 2020. As a back-seat passenger, it is believed she was the victim of a seat back failure. She suffered catastrophic brain trauma when the front passenger’s seat flexed allowing him to ramp over his seat and his head to strike hers. At the time of the accident, Hope was a student passenger in a driver’s education car. She and her mother had had a long conversation that morning because Hope was anxious about the driver’s education and her second drive ever. Hope listed all the reasons why she wanted to gain her independence to drive including being able to drive herself to all the ballet classes she wished to take and to help with other ballet classes and not have to be limited by her parents’ schedules to drive her there. She effectively talked herself into enduring the anxiety of learning to drive to reach her dream. Little did anyone know that Hope would not be coming home that day to fulfill any dream of hers.

Hope had a huge zest for life with a contagious dimpled smile that lit up any room. She had many, many dreams. First, she loved Jesus and wanted to use the entirety of her life to glorify Him. Second, she wanted to be a professional ballerina, and she lit up any stage with her grace, poise and talent, and she worked hard, overcoming setbacks, on her way to reach that dream. Third, she wanted to teach ballet students who couldn’t afford ballet because she believed all children should have the opportunity to dance. In fact, she had her own student that she taught for free for about a year before she died, practicing what she preached. Fourth, she wanted to host a free ballet summer camp, like ballet Bible school, complete with classical ballet instruction, worship dance, devotion, craft and snack. Fifth, she wanted to be a published author as she had a hugely imaginative mind and started writing stories before she could spell. While she didn’t accomplish all those things before her death, her legacy lives on. She did get to dance en pointe in the Oklahoma Nutcracker about three weeks before her death which fulfilled a big dream of hers. Her beaming face at the curtain call showed how very much she loved performing. After her death, Dancing for Eternity, a nonprofit, was started by her parents in her memory to give ballet scholarships to students who couldn’t afford lessons and they host a free summer ballet camp every year just like Hope wanted it to be. Her parents also had one of her creative writing stories published after her death entitled The Princess and The Troll. The book details how Hope was tenacious about reaching her dreams even though she struggled with her troll, anxiety. Hope lived an incredibly full life for all her fifteen years and exuded love, kindness, a spirit of sweet sassiness, and perseverance. She was greatly loved and admired by her family and friends. Their lives are not the same without her.

Hope’s heart was kind and full of justice, championing the underdog. In fact, when she was a little girl, her parents would get out the biggest book on their bookshelf, place it in the middle of the family room, have her stand on it and pour her heart out over injustices that bothered her. They called it Hope’s Soapbox. Hope would be bothered by this injustice, and if she could, she’d stand on her soapbox for this issue, too. Her heart would be for children, and she’d be heartbroken to know that children are dying from something that is preventable. She would urge those in charge to strengthen and modernize seat back safety standards to better protect rear-seat passengers from catastrophic injury, permanent disability, and death. While Hope’s legacy does live on in many ways, hopefully a part of her legacy will be preventing the death of other children due to seat back failures. The current seat back safety standard has remained largely unchanged since 1967 and does not provide adequate protection to occupants, particularly children seated in the back seat during rear-end collisions. While progress has been made through the Modernizing Seat Back Safety Act of 2021, its provisions have not yet been fully implemented into updated NHTSA safety standards based on real-world energies and crash settings, and in the meantime, children are still dying, just like Hope. You can find more information at the Hope Shaffer Safe Seat Back Initiative Facebook page.