In the United States, lane departure crashes represent 54 percent of traffic fatalities on roadways. In 2014, more than 17,700 fatalities were attributed to vehicles departing their driving lane. PacTrans has supported a three-phase student competition to develop public service announcements (PSAs) related to lane departure crashes. Phase I explored the issue of lane departure crashes, as well as how PSAs have been used in the transportation industry. The researchers prepared guidelines for a competition open to all Pacific Northwest college- and high school-level students. Students were asked to submit a video or a series of Twitter posts, memes, or Instagram posts and to develop a poster of a PSA for lane departure crashes. In Phase II the researchers evaluated the competition entries, selected winners, and distributed and promoted the winning materials through several social media outlets. In this Phase III, the PSA competition is being expanded to K-9 students. The general topics have been simplified to answer the questions “What is a car crash?” and “What causes a car crash?” The submissions will be redesigned to better match younger student’s abilities. The collective goal of all three phases of this project is to engage the Pacific Northwest public in the safety issue of lane departure crashes.
Principal Investigators:
Leila Hajibabai, Civil and Environmental Engineering, WSU
Linda Boyle, Industrial Systems and Engineering, UW
Sponsor: PacTrans
Scheduled completion: January 2018