Safe Communities honors ‘Click It or Ticket’ banner winners
Emelyn Yoder and Emilie Olinger, winners of the first- and second-place banners for Safe Communities' "Click It or Ticket" banner contest, joined law-enforcement agents in the community for a photo op. The posters will be made into banners and will be present at the upcoming Holmes County Fair.
When summer rolls around and school lets out for the season, that means there are many more young drivers on the highways and byways of Wayne and Holmes counties.
With the additional challenges of dealing with buggies, walkers, runners and bikers facing drivers, the importance of buckling up when on the road continues to be critical for everyone.
As a way of encouraging drivers to buckle up their seat belts when driving, the members of Wayne-Holmes Safe Communities recently completed its annual summer "Click It or Ticket" banner campaign contest in elementary schools all around both counties.
Wayne-Holmes Safe Communities Director Beth McCready traveled both counties to celebrate with the youth who submitted winning posters in the “Click It or Ticket” banner contest, joining other law-enforcement officers as they awarded prizes to the winning children who put their drawing skills to the test.
"We’ve had this contest for several years now, and it’s always exciting to see the kids get involved with sharing our message of the importance of using seat belts every time you get into a vehicle,” McCready said.
All youth in the county are invited to come up with a theme and draw a picture featuring seat-belt safety.
In Wayne County the first-place winner was Owen Compston from Apple Creek Elementary/Waynedale District. Second place went to Harper Pelfrey from Norwayne Elementary while the third-place winner was Griffin Pelfrey from Norwayne Elementary.
The first-place prize winner in Holmes County was Emelyn Yoder, 9, a third-grader at Millersburg Elementary. The second-place prize winner was Emilie Olinger, 8, a third-grader at Walnut Creek Elementary. The third-place prize winner was Georgiana Yoder, 11, a fifth-grader at Walnut Creek Elementary.
“We were very excited to see more entries this year,” McCready said. “It made picking out the winners tough because one person would think one thing and everyone had their own opinions, but it made the process fun, and it was neat to see all the kids getting involved.”
McCready was excited to see a wider range of participants from throughout both counties, noting there were myriad entries to sift through to declare the winners, although she noted by simply participating and gaining more awareness of the importance of buckling up, all of the participants were winners.
She and the judging team were especially impressed by the entry of Evelyn Yoder, who shared a personal experience that detailed the importance of seat-belt safety.
“She wrote a really neat message that accompanied why she drew the picture she did,” McCready said. “She wrote, ‘You should always wear your seat belt. You should wear your seat belt because if you get into a car accident, you won't fly around in the car and get hurt more than you already are. When I was in Michigan, me and my family were riding on the sand dunes, and my dad flipped our four-wheeler. Luckily, me and my family had our seat belts on. If we were not wearing our seat belts, we could have been really hurt. But luckily, none of us got hurt. That is why you should always wear your seat belt.'”
McCready said those types of stories are exactly why people need to remain cognizant of the importance of using every safety precaution — most importantly, clicking the seat belt whenever possible.
“The state is really putting an emphasis on encouraging our youth in particular to buckle up,” McCready said. “It’s imperative for everyone, but we want to make sure our younger drivers really get the point that it’s so important in saving lives.”
The “Click It or Ticket” message remains important because the latest seat-belt usage survey in 2022 has seen Ohio’s seat-belt usage drop to its lowest in almost two decades.
In Holmes County the current seat-belt usage is 83.2%, slightly better than the state's overall seat-belt usage of 80.8%, and in Wayne County it is 78.2%. Nationally, the rate stands at 91.6%, meaning Ohio is currently well below the average when it comes to buckling up.
Those numbers are why Safe Communities continues to promote the “Click It or Ticket” message.
“It’s about saving lives and spreading the message that buckling a seat belt is the greatest way to come out of an accident with the least amount of harm and most importantly coming out alive,” McCready said.
The winning banners from each county will be created and displayed by Safe Communities at each county fair this summer, as a way of continuing to promote the program and share the importance of buckling up.