Project Summary
In the United States, lane departure crashes represent 54% of the traffic fatalities that occur on roadways (FHWA 2016a). Lane departure crashes are commonly observed on rural two-lane roadways, although they can occur on a wide variety of functional classifications. In 2014, more than 17,700 fatalities happened because of vehicles departing their driving lane (FHWA 2016a). Figure 1 highlights the percentage of fatalities caused by different types of lane departure crashes.
PacTrans has supported a student competition to develop PSAs related to lane departure crashes. This project has spanned three independent phases.
- Phase I. Competition planning. The issue of lane departure crashes are explored in this phase, along with how PSAs have been implemented in the transportation industry. We prepared guidelines for the college and high school level competitions, which were open to all students in the Pacific Northwest. These guidelines request that the students submit a video, a series of Twitter, memes, or Instagram posts. They were also asked to develop a poster of a comprehensive PSA for lane departure crashes in the Pacific Northwest. This mixed media approach allows for PSA distribution through several social media outlets. Submissions will be reviewed on pre-selected criteria, with monetary awards presented to the winning individuals or teams. Additionally, the advertising materials distributed in the form of flyers and websites are described.
- Phase II. Evaluation of competition entries. In this phase, the project team collected the competition entries, evaluated them, and made selections for winners. The project team will then distribute and promote the winning materials
- Phase III. Expansion. In the third phase, the project team will expand the population of participants in the PSA competition to K-9 students. The general topics will be simplified to answer the following questions: 1) What is a car crash? and 2) What causes a car crash? The submissions will also be redesigned to better match the younger student’s abilities.
The collective goal of all three phases of this project is to engage the public in the Pacific Northwest regarding the safety issue of lane departure crashes.
