Texas High students win contest with video about drunken, distracted driving
TEXARKANA, Texas — Texas High School students received a $2,000 check for winning the Texas Department of Transportation Traffic Safety Public Service Announcement competition held in March.
The students created a video about the hazards of distracted and drunk driving and beat out 12 other schools from the TxDOT Atlanta District that covers a nine-county area of Northeast Texas. The funds will go towards this year’s Project Celebration at the school.
The video, titled, “Is a life worth your attention?” depicts senior Logan Diggs as a young man drinking alcohol, in addition to texting on a cell phone while a child simultaneously shoots a basketball in her driveway. The B roll stops as the ball rolls onto the street and the driver edges toward the child on the street.
Diggs said the video turned out better than expected, as he and fellow students hoped to send a message about safe driving after events like prom.
“The motivation behind it started from us realizing that prom during the school
year is probably the most dangerous night for all high schoolers, considering how much drunk driving there is and stuff surrounding prom that makes it dangerous after the dance itself,” Diggs said. “That’s the idea where making this PSA came from.”
Senior Assad Malik said lives have been lost at too rapid of a rate in instances like this for the issue to be ignored.
“Typically, every year at Texas High, we seem to lose a student,” Malik said. “It seems to be a frequent pattern. So, if we can do something like make this PSA to prevent someone from losing their life, that’s worth our time. That’s something important that we should do.”
The seniors said they were happy to be contributing to Project Celebration with the difficulties they’ve had trying to raise funds in the past year.
Diggs said he hopes to leave a message that will carry with the next group of seniors that come through Texas High.
“For us being seniors, we’d probably encourage other seniors to be there for one another,” he said. “Although drinking is something those our age shouldn’t be doing, for some people, they’re inevitably going to do it. And I feel like if you’re around someone who is, you should at least let them know not to drive. Or if they need to be somewhere, get them a designated driver.”