The Southlake Department of Public Safety won a Best Video PSA award for a driving safety video it published last year.
The video, which was titled “WHOA, why is everyone perfectly driving the speed limit?!," encouraged drivers to follow the speed limit in a parody of the Houston Astros scandal, where players banged on trash cans to alert their teammates of upcoming pitches. In Southlake DPS’ video, firefighter Doug Carel also banged on a trash can to warn drivers of Cpl. Billy Thomas’ speed trap — all while wearing a Houston Astros jersey.
The video became a viral hit, garnering 4.3 million views on YouTube and 336,000 views on Facebook, with a 98% positivity score.
“It ignited our YouTube page overnight,” Southlake DPS public information officer Brad Uptmore says in MySouthlakeNews.com. “We normally just used YouTube as a place where all our videos are together as a reference tool, but now it’s a legitimate platform for us. We’ve gained over 10,000 followers there in the last few months.”
The video was awarded Best Educational Public Service Announcement with a population under 75,000 by the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers. You can view the full list of award winners at TexasTAMIO.org.