Safe driving billboard design contest opened for students

The Lorain County Safe Communities Coalition is accepting design submissions from county high school students for billboards advocating for teen driver safety.

Lorain County Public Health is conducting the contest with support from State Farm.

A winner and runnerup of the Communities Coalition’s contest will be selected by a panel of judges based on creativity, originality and clarity after submissions close on Oct. 5.

The first-place winner will receive $500 and will have the design will be featured on billboards throughout Lorain County during National Teen Driver Safety Week from Oct. 21-27.

An additional $500 will be gifted to the teacher who was referred in the winner’s application for classroom improvements.

The winner’s school also will have an opportunity to host a distracted driving awareness event during the upcoming school year, which Lorain County Safe Communities Coalition and State Farm will provide.

The runner-up will receive $250.

If multiple applicants are selected as runner-ups, the money will be divided equally among them.

Elyria police Capt. Christopher Costantino said campaigns using signage or bumper stickers advocating driver safety are effective and well-conducted, even if the problems continue to resurface.

“There’s a strong campaign that does have some effect,” Costantino said. “But to say it ever reaches 100 percent compliance, I don’t think that’s realistic.”

Common distractions include texting, talking on the phone or with other people in the car, picking up dropped items or changing the radio station, he said.

Jim Drozdowski, public information officer for the Avon Police Department, said texting while driving has become a more pervasive issue than drinking and driving for teens.

“Phones are such a part of society,” Drozdowski said. “A person feels a need that when a phone rings, they need to answer it. We’re trying to tell people to just wait to call them back.”

Avon passed an ordinance in July that makes texting while driving a primary offense.

Drozdowski said he hopes this ordinance will deter, both teens and adults, from being distracted behind the wheel.

“Parents have got to be a role model,” he said. “We’re starting to see more and more older individuals — by that I mean 30s, 40s, 50s — that are preoccupied with driving and texting.

“They need to be the first ones to set the example and explain the danger of how quickly they can lose their life or the life of someone else.”