In its third year, the York County "No Excuses: Youth Traffic Safety" Billboard Design Contest invited York County high school students who have a strong belief in traffic safety and who want to make a difference among their peers to enter. For this campaign, teenagers were approached through their high school faculty and administration to design a billboard that targeted one or more of the following traffic safety messages: discourage distracted driving, encourage seat belt use, and/or discourage aggressive/reckless driving.
The winning design was created by four students from Northern High School. Those students are Jack Phipps, Ryan Allen, Reid Weber, and Ian Hall. The winning entry addresses both distracted driving and distracted pedestrians. The four students are featured in the actual design. Their entry was the favorite among all the student judges.
Northern High School will receive a $1,000 mini-grant to be used toward traffic safety programming. All four of the designers will each receive $100 for his contribution to the winning design.
This billboard was displayed along I-83 North, just south of Exit 32 (Newberrytown), during the month of April - National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. The site was chosen because it was identified as being a high-incidence roadway for crashes involving teenage drivers, according to PennDOT crash data analysis.
The second-place design was created by Neharika Noor and Ally Sipe, two students from Central York High School. Central will receive a $500 mini-grant to be used for traffic safety programming. Although the second-place design was not to be made into a billboard, it was to be used extensively in other media, including social media.
Judges for the contest came from two groups: 1) professionals and experts in the field of traffic safety, marketing, planning departments, and media, and 2) high school students for their peer perspective. The student judging results weighed heavily in determining the winning entry, because they are the target audience and advocates.
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