Newsletter

The City of Santa Clarita’s Innovative Heads Up Campaign

The headlines from 2016 were alarming – “Deputies Investigate Fourth Pedestrian Hit, Killed on Sierra Highway,” “Pedestrian Struck and Killed Monday Identified as Valencia Woman,” and “Teen Girl’s Canyon Country Death Puts Pedestrian Safety in Spotlight.” When the year was over, seven people had lost their lives on Santa Clarita City streets. From 2014 to 2016, research showed that pedestrian-involved accidents increased 30 percent. In 2016, Santa Clarita saw a tragic 75 percent increase in pedestrian-involved fatalities. In response, the city teamed up with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station to form a traffic safety team and implement an educational campaign.

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With input from city traffic, administration, and communications personnel, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Traffic Division, the team developed the traffic plan, Heads Up, beginning in 2017. This innovative campaign consisted of out-of-the-box methods for reaching residents with four central messages: See and Be Seen, Expect People in Crosswalks, Disconnect from Distractions, and Use the Crosswalk.

Heads Up aims to educate the public about unsafe behaviors exhibited by drivers and pedestrians, including cell phone distractions and jaywalking. The objective is to correct these behaviors, which were found to contribute to accidents and reduce the total number of traffic collisions, specifically those involving pedestrians.

The implementation of Heads Up began with advertisements, social media, and editorials in local publications – and then took creative messaging outlets to the next level. Who better than to spread the message about the dangers of distracted driving to adults than their own children? The city’s communications division worked with local elementary schools in the city’s three districts to hold week-long Heads Up events on campus. These events consisted of providing children with miniature crossing guard signs featuring the Heads Up logo to increase visibility when crossing the street. By seeing their children and other young students in the crosswalks with Heads Up signs, the message really resonated with drivers who made a more personal and human connection to the danger of distracted driving.

In the first year of the campaign, Heads Up messaging was presented in many additional forms – on coffee sleeves at local coffee shops, on cell phone car mounts given to residents, and even at crosswalks themselves. The city stenciled the Heads Up logo at 36 school crosswalks and 21 additional intersections identified as high foot traffic areas. As pedestrians stepped off the curb, the uniquely placed message reminded them to look around and see and be seen.

At the end of the campaign’s first year, the number of pedestrian-involved incidents in Santa Clarita dropped by 42 percent, and not a single pedestrian life was lost. Since 2017, the campaign has expanded to address various traffic safety issues observed in the city’s data collection. Messages have been geared toward bicycle and equestrian safety and combatting instances of driving under the influence. The campaign is multi-faceted and covers best practices for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. It includes proactive steps that residents can take to reduce the risk of accident and injury, such as wearing clothes that make you more visible while riding your bike, only crossing the street at designated crosswalks, and disconnecting from distractions when behind the wheel.

Since launching the Heads Up campaign in 2017, the city of Santa Clarita has seen its collision rate fall from 858 per 100,000 population to 541 at the end of 2021. Setting 2020 aside, when fewer vehicles were on the road due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, 541 is the lowest collision rate on record in Santa Clarita. The collision injury rate has also fallen from 310 to 192 over the same period. When comparing 2021 statistics to 2019, the city’s collision rate is down 9 percent, collisions involving pedestrians are down 21 percent, and collisions involving cyclists are down 11 percent. To learn more about the city of Santa Clarita’s Heads Up traffic safety campaign, please visit santa-clarita.com/HeadsUp.

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