The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), Highway Safety Network, and Visit Clearfield County recently announced the opening of the Clearfield County Traffic Safety Geotrail as part of an effort to reduce serious injuries and fatal highway crashes.
Geocaching involves using GPS-enabled devices to attempt to find a geocache hidden at a specific location. The Clearfield County Traffic Safety Geotrail includes 20 geocaches with brochures containing keywords. Participants who visit all 20 geocaches receive a reward coin for completing the trail.
“We are grateful to the Highway Safety Network and Visit Clearfield County for their hard work and creativity in creating this geotrail and look forward to seeing this new take on traffic safety education bring us closer to our goal of eliminating highway fatalities,” Erik Brown, PennDOT district traffic engineer, said.
Traditional outreach and education efforts were not possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. Josh Woods, Highway Safety Network community traffic safety project coordinator, mentioned this problem to Josiah Jones, Visit Clearfield County executive director. Jones mentioned the executive board sought to expand its existing geotrail network.
Taxpayer dollars were not used for the project. State Farm Insurance’s Good Neighbor Citizenship Company Grants were used to purchase geocache boxes, passport booklets, and reward coins.
Passport booklets are available at the Visit Clearfield County office during weekday hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.