Seneca Valley High School student David Salinas was in his second-period class on March 14 when he was called to the Germantown school’s main office and greeted by Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) staff members.
“They started playing music very loudly in the halls,” Salinas told Bethesda Today on Friday. “That was surprising, caught me off guard, but I loved their energy.”
The transportation department staff were on hand March 14 to congratulate Salinas and his partner and fellow student, Zachary Long, who were named the grand prize winners for the group category in the MCDOT’s 2025 Heads Up, Phones Down video contest.
“I was very surprised that we actually won because I’d seen the submissions a few days prior, and I was like, ‘Oh, these are pretty good. I really like these,’ ” Salinas said. “I was very surprised and very grateful for the experience I had.”
The video contest provided an opportunity for all Montgomery County public and private high school students to create a video encouraging peers to not be distracted by cell phones while driving and walking.
Salinas said he wanted to participate in the competition because he takes a film class as part of an International Baccalaureate program at his school.
“Not all of our works go public,” he said. “I felt that it would be a fun experience that I could show my work to the world.”
He said he had previously heard of the annual competition, but didn’t have an idea for a video at the time. This year, he decided to enter and produce a more light-hearted video focused on what it would look like if a phone could talk.
The 30-second public service announcement shows a cell phone relentlessly demanding the attention of Long as he wakes and then gets into the driver’s seat of a vehicle. The student “Be quiet!” and turns off the phone before driving. The video notes that phone usage “is a factor in more than 1.6 million car crashes” annually, according to the National Safety Council.
“We planned this out for like weeks on what the shots were going to be and how the story would progress,” Salinas said. “I told [Long], just come to my house over the weekend. We shot the entire video that same day.”
Six individual students and groups were awarded prizes out of nearly 100 video submissions. Individual submission winners qualified for prizes including an Apple MacBook Pro, an Apple Watch or a tripod. Group winners received $800 for the grand prize, $400 for first place and $200 for second place.
Other group winners in addition to Salinas and Long were first runners-up Mirae Denaro and Tyler Skibo from Bethesda’s Walter Johnson High School and second runners-up Mohammad Abbasi and Everett Welsh, also from Walter Johnson.
In the individual category, Rockville’s Richard Montgomery High School student Htoo Lin took home the grand prize, Wheaton High’s Fernando Rodriguez Batres was named first runner-up and Tihun Oler from Northwest High School in Germantown was second runner-up.
Salinas encouraged others to participate in the contest. Even without winning, the contest provides an opportunity to have fun making videos with friends while educating others on safe walking and driving practices, he said.
“We just tend to overlook these things, these daily little decisions that could potentially have very disastrous consequences,” Salinas said. “Especially with technology addiction and the rise in phone usage, I think it’s more important to emphasize that while you’re driving a very heavy vehicle … you could potentially hurt someone or hurt yourself if you’re driving distracted.”
In a statement announcing the winners, MCDOT Director Chris Conklin noted that in Maryland, more than 6,000 young drivers are injured and 14 are killed annually in car crashes, with distracted driving playing a key role in many of the collisions.
“We need to encourage young drivers to hold themselves accountable and hold each other accountable,” Conklin said. “These videos are a positive way to send a message about a deadly behavior.”
