EndDD.org is proud to announce the winners of our 2018 Video and Meme/Gif Contest – “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Distracted.” The contest was open to students from schools nationwide with a SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) chapter and was expanded this year to include elementary and middle school students. “Kids start learning about driving as soon as that car seat is turned around to face forward,” said Joel Feldman, EndDD.org founder. “Accordingly, it’s important to start the education well before they get to high school.” Some 56 video entries were submitted in total, along with 167 memes for this year’s contest.
The contest was co-sponsored by SADD and Anapol Weiss and included over $12,000 in prizes and Taylor Swift concert tickets. Judging the competition were Deborah Hersman, President and CEO of the National Safety Council, Jonathan Adkins, Executive Director of the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, Sol Weiss, President of the law firm, Anapol Weiss and Dylan Mullins, SADD National Student of the Year. This year’s winners hail from New York, Alabama, Minnesota, North Dakota, Indiana and Virginia.
The first place winner in the high school video category was John George from Rome Free Academy, Rome, NY for his video, “On My Way.” ” I wanted to place a focus on the consequences of distracted driving, and from a unique angle. In this video, the driver’s friend survives, and she composes a poem to express her grief. Using poetry to convey the theme was difficult to pull off but, led to a powerful statement on the consequences of distracted driving,” explained John.
Meaghan Hutschison from Dothan High School in Dothan, AL won second place for her video, “The Road Often Traveled.” In commenting on her video, Meaghan said, “Distracted Driving is the ‘road’ or path people are always on. They tend to text and drive, jam out with their friends, and do other things that distract them from the road. It inspired me to do a video based on the ‘road’ people are always on; driving distracted”.
Third place in the video category went to Hannah Brumfield from Kasson-Mantorville High School in Kasson, MN for “Break the Circle.” According to Hannah, “We wanted to state to everyone to break the circle or chain of distracted driving as friends are often the ones who can make that choice. The teen crashes in our area sadly happened in a situation similar to this video, the drivers chose to have distractions and lost their lives; meanwhile, the friends were left with the regret of letting him or her be distracted.”
In the high school meme category, first place went to Cole Johnson, New Rockford-Sheyenne School in New Rockford, ND for “Yo Girl”. Second place went to Jake Williams, also from New Rockford-Sheyenne School, for “Expanding Brain” and third, to Molly Hurley and Sam Miller from Greensburg Community School in Greensburg, IN for “Not the Wheels You Wanted”.
In the expansion of the contest this year to to elementary and middle schools, students were permitted to submit memes or gifs. One prize was offered for each. The winners were siblings from Virginia – Will Vermette from Belmont Ridge Middle School for “ET Phones Home” and his sister, Sophia from Newton Lee Elementary School for “You’re in Big Trouble Mister!”.
Congratulations to our winners and a big thank you to all of those who submitted entries!
View all of our 2018 contest winners here.
