Mitigation of Lane Departure Crashes in the Pacific Northwest through Coordinated Outreach

In the United States, lane departure crashes represent the majority of the fatalities that occur on roadways. In addition to infrastructure changes, public service announcements (PSAs) are an option to influence the travelling public to drive more safely. PSAs can be used to target specific audiences and inform them about safe behavior in different circumstances. To support this option, PacTrans has supported a student competition to develop PSAs related to lane departure crashes. This report constitutes Phase I of the project, which includes the planning phase of the competition. More specifically, the issue of lane departure crashes will be explored, along with how PSAs have been implemented in the transportation industry. The guidelines for the college and high school level competitions open to students in the Pacific Northwest will be described. These guidelines request that the students submit a video, series of Twitter or Instagram posts, and a poster to develop a comprehensive PSA for lane departure crashes in the Pacific Northwest. Prize money is available for the winning individuals or teams. Additionally, the adverting materials distributed in the form of flyers and websites will be described. Phase II of the project will focus on the collection of submissions and the selection of prize winners. It is the goal of both phases of this project to engage the public in the Pacific Northwest regarding the safety issue of lane departure crashes.Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium Oregon State University University of Idaho University of Alaska Fairbanks University of Washington Washington State Universit