News Release

April 1, 2008

Sweet Ride on the Safe Side winner to receive new car
at news conference April 7

AMES, Iowa – For the last seven months young drivers around Iowa have been logging on to www.sweetridecontest.com to learn about safe driving in work zones and register to win a car courtesy of Charles Gabus Ford. The contest, sponsored by the Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT), KDSM-Fox 17 and Charles Gabus Ford, along with many other groups, finally has a winner.

The winner will be revealed at a news conference April 7 at 3 p.m. at Charles Gabus Ford, 4545 Merle Hay Road in Des Moines.

The contest was promoted on KDSM- Fox 17 and at Iowa high schools, and community, state and private colleges with posters and presentations by ThinkFirst Iowa . Events such as career fairs and advertisements in the programs of Iowa high school athletic events highlighted the contest Web site to an audience of young drivers that are often difficult to reach through traditional communication means.

This unconventional method of reaching Iowa 's younger drivers seems to have worked as nearly 12,000 unique visitors logged on the site from August 2007 to March 2008, and more than 18,000 views of the safety video were recorded.

Nancy Richardson, Iowa DOT director, said, “As a group, teens and young adults are most at risk to die motor vehicle crashes. Getting the message to them about safe driving has always been a challenge, so the Iowa DOT and other contest sponsors are very happy with the large number of young people who logged on to the Web site, accessed the video and hopefully learned helpful information about work zone safety that will save lives.”

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