A new public safety campaign developed by MB Piland Advertising + Marketing recently earned national awards for the Kansas Highway Patrol (KHP) from the Uniformed Safety Education Officers Workshop (USEOW).

A first place was awarded for video and third place for radio PSA from a field of law enforcement agencies across the country.

Ask any Kansas Highway Patrol (KHP) Trooper about their worst day and they will all say the same thing: it’s when they must inform someone that a family member has been killed in a crash.

The award-winning public safety campaign, Buckle Up, Be Alert, featuring active duty KHP Troopers, seeks to stem the rise of fatal and serious injury crashes on KanLeft to right: Lt. Chad Crittenden, Technical Trooper Tiffany Baylark and Technical Trooper Gary Boles.sas highways and rural roads. The campaign videos in both English and Spanish can be viewed on MB Piland’s YouTube channel. 

Crashes on highways and rural roads are up to four times more likely than on the interstate, according to data from the Kansas Department of Transportation. These crashes are even more deadly when large commercial trucks are involved.

“Many people associate harmful crashes with the interstate system where vehicles are traveling at high speeds. But we’re seeing a disproportionate number of serious injury and fatal crashes on highways and rural roads,” says Captain Candice Breshears, Public & Governmental Affairs for Kansas Highway Patrol.

Data from the Kansas Department of Transportation show 83 percent of all fatal crashes and 74 percent of injury crashes occurred on U.S. and state highways and rural roads (KDOT five-year average CY2019-2023).

“People tend to use less caution on the roads they drive every day,” says Lt. Adam Winters, Kansas Highway Patrol.

“They think they’ve got the road to themselves or that they don’t need to buckle up if they’re only going a few miles. That’s when tragedies can occur.”

The Buckle Up, Be Alert public safety campaign features active duty Troopers in rural settings who advise drivers to use seatbelts, drive sober and mind the speed limits. Their plea: “Take these words out of my mouth,” meaning they’d rather give a driver a citation than have to inform their family of a fatal crash.

“We’re seeing far too many crashes resulting from excessive speed and distracted driving,” says Winters. “And if the driver isn’t belted, even single vehicle rollovers can be deadly. These are often drivers in pick up trucks traveling very close to home.”

The Kansas Highway Patrol is also allocating resources to extra enforcement on roadways as a deterrent.

“We hope that issuing a few more tickets means we’ll save more lives. Once people get in the habit of buckling up and keeping their phone out of sight while driving, we’ll make real progress on saving the lives of Kansans on our roads,” says Winters.

The Buckle Up, Be Alert campaign is active through September 14, 2025, with extra enforcement and safety messaging on billboards, rural radio stations, gas pump video displays and multiple online platforms.

The USEOW brings safety education officers (exclusively state troopers) from across the country to come together annually to network, discuss current trends their states are experiencing and share ideas on how to better present safety information to their respective audiences.

More information about this safety initiative is available on the Kansas Highway Patrol website.