The South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) and the Roadway Safety Foundation (RSF) have launched a new safety campaign on August 26, 2009 entitled Recognize, React, and Recover: Using Rumble Strips to Prevent Run-off-Road Crashes. Nearly half of all fatal crashes in South Carolina involved a vehicle running-off-the road. A run-off-road crash occurs in South Carolina every half hour, and 55 people die in one of these crashes every day. Rumble strips are alarms to help drivers recognize… react… recover if they drive out of their lane. Rumble strips can cut the number of run-off-road crashes by up to 80 percent. That’s why SCDOT is adding them to roads across the state.

The public education campaign was officially announced with a news conference that featured Greg Cohen, Executive Director of the Roadway Safety Foundation in Washington, DC; H. B. “Buck” Limehouse, Jr. South Carolina’s Secretary of Transportation; Robert (“Bob”) Lee, Division Administrator of the SC Division Office of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA); and representatives of several families who have experienced the tragedy of a run-off-road crash. National driving expert Bill Wade of Street Survival also attended the news conference and conducted a driving demonstration for members of the media. New national and statewide television ads and radio ads were released as well (see below for links). Additionally, portions of an educational DVD about the safety benefits of rumble strips and how to recover from a run-off-road crash were debuted. For more details on this campaign, see below: