With Minnesota traffic fatalities remaining at record low levels for a second straight year, state officials are using new strategies to try to push them even lower.

Deaths on state roads are projected to reach about 420 for 2010, a number nearly identical to the 65-year low a year earlier, the state Department of Public Safety announced Monday. Now, honoring the story behind each fatality - and the teachable moment that comes with many of them -- the agency also has created a Minnesota Crash Victims Memorial website to put faces to names and to try to further shrink the carnage on state roads.

Among the first victims to be remembered on the site, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, is Kelsey Kjos, 16, of Alexandria, whose 2004 death helped inspire legislation putting muscle behind efforts to boost seat belt use.

"There is a Kelsey in almost everyone's life," her mother, Loni Kjos, said last week. In fact, the family next door experienced a traffic-death tragedy. Dennis Dumm grew up there, and at age 31, while bicycling in Minneapolis, he was killed. His death was the same week the seat belt law passed. His story is part of the site.

The site has yet to get a public push, but officials see it as a way to promote safe driving. Education, they added, is one reason road deaths have dropped by more than 200 since 2002.

There have been setbacks, however. Preliminary statistics released Monday show teen deaths rising from 35 in 2009 to 37 in 2010, an increase due in part to two high-profile accidents last April. Three teens were killed when drivers raced in southeastern Minnesota, and then, two days later, six people were killed in a head-on collision in Cambridge.

But total road deaths stood at 410 in Monday's preliminary tally, down from 2009's total of 421, the lowest number since 1944. State officials expect the final 2010 figure to be about 420 after additional reports are received. The reduction over eight years is "very significant," Public Safety Commissioner Michael Campion said, attributing the decline to such factors as targeted enforcement, improved engineering of cable median barriers, safer vehicles and traffic legislation.

Kelsey Kjos is another reason more people are clicking their seat belts. On Monday, 10 stories were on the site; more are expected when it is launched in a more public way. Kirsty Kilpela, 16, of Eveleth, is the lone 2010 victim; her death came on Oct. 7 after a wrong-way driver struck a truck being driven by her sister, the family wrote.

Kelsey Kjos died an unlikely death. Forever, her family wrote, she had been the one to tell people to buckle up. Yet, when her friend rolled her vehicle on a beautiful afternoon in November 2004, Kelsey was unbelted. Her friend, who was wearing her seat belt, suffered a hand injury.

Kelsey's family and friends helped secure passage of a primary seat belt law allowing officers to stop drivers or passengers for belt violations.

Loni Kjos said one potential use of the website could be as required viewing for teens taking driver's education classes.

In the meantime, the primary seat belt law that her daughter helped inspire continues to save lives. Daytime seat belt compliance is at a record high, and when combined with tougher DWI sanctions enacted in 2010, the milestones "will drive the trend of fewer road deaths in 2011," the Public Safety Department predicts.

Next door to the Kjos residence, Dennis Dumm's relatives remember their anguish upon learning that he'd been killed -- struck by a truck that crossed in front of him. "What do I do now? What do I do now?" they recall crying.

Today, they know the answer. "Bike safely," they say. "Be a careful driver. Be aware."

Anthony Lonetree • 612-673-4109