Safety on 195: Education campaign to promote safe driving on the Palouse

Jana Mathia, Gazette Reporter | Mar 15, 20180

A 2015/16 crash analysis of US 195 found 65 percent of fatal crashes were caused by distracted, drowsy and young (age 16-25) drivers. The study was conducted through a partnership between WSDOT and the Palouse Regional Transportation Planning Organization (PRTPO) and prompted the PRTPO to initiate a campaign to educate drivers.

“We were already aware of what was happening on 26 and 195,” said Shaun Darveshi, PRTPO director, referencing the move to expand the highways to four lanes.

The Palouse Driver Education Campaign was created to encourage safe driving habits and educate drivers as a supplementary solution to the traffic hazards along highways.

A website, http://www.safepalousedrivers.com, was created, but much of the work has been “boots on the ground” with the campaign setting up booths at town, city and student events. In 2017, there was a booth at 19 different public events.

In addition to safe driving education, the booths promoted the website and asked people to take a pledge not to drive distracted. The campaign gathered 350 pledges.

Darveshi noted that a lot of drivers at WSU are not from Washington and some have never even seen snow, much less know how to drive in it.

“They just were not aware of how to be a safe driver,” he said.

To address that, the website includes videos and tutorials on a wide range of safe driving practices. There are 28 camera feeds on the website, providing a real-time look at driving conditions from Pullman to Seattle, Pullman to Spokane and in Moscow and Lewiston.

The campaign also has reader boards to locate along main routes to encourage safe driving practices like not texting when driving and staying aware of their surroundings. Darveshi added that even though people know it is not safe to drive distracted, they still do it, so the reader boards are a way to communicate with them while driving.

Another way the campaign reaches drivers behind the wheel is through radio commercials. Every day six safe-driving radio commercials play across seven stations.

The website has three Twitter feeds including one WSDOT based with road conditions and reports. The campaign also has a Facebook and Instagram account to keep drivers informed, educated and connected.

The videos include extreme weather how-to’s like how to drive in dense fog, in hail and what to do if your vehicle gets stuck. It also has links to safety tips on dealing with aggressive drivers, drowsy driving, emergency car kits and more.

PRTPO plans to continue the campaign as long as it can find the funding to do so.

“A lot of positive came out of this campaign,” Darveshi said. “One in six have heard about our campaign.”

PRTPO is a transportation agency, he noted, and this kind of campaign is not its primary function. But they had to find a way to do something about the problem and this accomplishes that. The campaign also contributes to the state’s Target Zero 2030 goal of no traffic fatalities by the year 2030.

Darveshi said when they started the campaign with the first $50,000 grant, the mantra was if they could save one life with that money, it was worth it. From feedback he has received, the campaign is helping and may have saved that one life and possibly more. In 2017 there were zero fatalities in the Palouse region.

There has been preliminary talk about expanding the campaign into other regional organizations, but it depends on funding and cooperation from outside sources.