Sheriff's Department

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Distracted Driver Awareness Project

Since the spring of 2008, the Kent County Sheriff Department has been working with some of the local high schools to promote awareness of the dangers of driving while distracted. This program has been geared toward educating young drivers of these dangers in an effort to instill safe driving habits.

The program targets these drivers with an education segment, and then allows the students creativity to shine through as they create videos and posters with a message about this problem. Once the students complete their projects, they are judged by fellow students to increase awareness amongst their classmates, and then the winners are displayed for the general public to view, therefore increasing this awareness to a bigger audience.

In 2008, students from Northview and Byron Center High Schools created one 30 second video each as a public service announcement. Both of these videos were broadcast to the public on a local news program.

In 2009, students from Northview and Byron Center created posters displaying a message regarding the dangers of distracted driving. The winning poster (from a Byron Center student) was made into a billboard and placed on US 131 for all the motoring public to view. In this same year, students from Forest Hills Central, Northern, and Eastern created several videos with this same message. The winning video was broadcast for the month of May as a public service announcement on a local TV station.

In 2010, 12 local Kent County High Schools competed in the Distracted Driving Program. Students from these schools competed in producing posters, radio public service announcements and television spots. All of these mediums were designed to continue to create awareness on the dangers of distracted driving. The program and the Kent County Sheriff's Department reached over 12,000 students and untold numbers of listeners and viewers.

In 2010, Deputy Tim Erhardt received recognition awards from the Community Policing Association of Michigan and the Governor's Traffic Safety Advisory Commission for his dedication to traffic safety awareness.