Leadership classes at two Renton high schools were recognized Wednesday for their efforts to promote traffic safety.

The Washington Traffic Safety Commission honored 10 King County traffic safety professionals and teams for their outstanding contributions to traffic safety.

Kara Crum’s Leadership Class at Lindbergh High School and Sara Olson’s Leadership Class at Renton High School were recognized for their contributions in the Young Drivers category.

These leadership classes at Renton and Lindbergh high schools work to promote seat belt use by students using the innovative Click it AND Ticket project, according to a commission press release. These classes have a goal of educating students, changing driver behavior, and eliminating injuries and deaths resulting from traffic crashes.

Robin Abel of Seattle, mother of Maria Federici of Renton, was recognized for her contributions in the Run-Off-Road Crashes category. In 2004 Maria Federici was struck by a piece of furniture from an unsecured load on Interstate 405. She lost her eyesight and suffered other permanent injuries.

Abel lobbied for House Bill 1478, called Maria’s Law, which made it a crime to carry unsecured loads on roadways.

Also receiving Target Zero Traffic Safety Awards were, according to the press release:

• Trooper Steve Luce of the Washington State Patrol’s Ignition Interlock Program was recognized for his contributions in the Impaired Driving category. Between 2006 and 2010, 1323 citizens were killed and 2,972 were seriously injured in collisions involving impaired drivers. In recent years ignition interlock devices are being credited with dramatically reducing the number of DUI repeat offenders.  Since 2008 Trooper Luce has single-handedly been running the states ignition interlock program.  From compliance checks to legislative hearings, he can do it all. House bill 2243 would expand the ignition interlock program to add 5 additional personnel to work with Trooper Luce. • Karl Citek, Professor of Optometry at Pacific University in Oregon, was recognized for his contributions in the Impaired Driving category. Since 1995 Dr Citek has been an expert on Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus or HGN  testing used by law enforcement to determine if someone is impaired.  For the last 10 years he has worked closely with Washington Law Enforcement training Drug Recognition Experts.  More recently he researched and published studies that give law enforcement and prosecutors additional tools and situations to perform NGN tests.

• The King County Law Enforcement Officers participating in the Target Zero Teams were recognized for their contributions in the Impaired Driving category.  Starting in July of 2010, Target Zero Teams were strategically placed in Snohomish, King and Pierce County. The mission of Target Zero Teams is to eliminate impaired driving fatality and serious injury crashes by arresting the maximum number of impaired drivers in locations known for high numbers of crashes and fatalities. City, county, and state law enforcement agencies throughout the participating counties work together as part of the Target Zero Teams conducting special dedicated emphasis patrols throughout the year. These multi-jurisdictional DUI enforcement teams have proven to be extremely effective. Traffic deaths decreased an average of 29% during the first 12 months of the project in all three counties.

• Armontae J. Smith of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was recognized for his contributions in the Traffic Data Systems category. Since graduating from college in 2010 Armontae has made a name for himself at the King County District Court by improving the way that DUI files are processed. Armontae developed a new case monitoring system database that made the filing process more efficient and gave King County District Court a clearer picture to improve and increase DUI prosecution.

• King and South King County Target Zero Teams Planning CommitteesThe Planning Committees for the Target Zero Teams in King County were given a Special Director’s Award. Target Zero Teams is a high visibility data-driven, targeted DUI enforcement project. Before this project began, the planning committees analyzed five years of data to determine the locations where the most DUIs occur, and the locations where the most DUI-related crashes occur. This determined where the Target Zero Teams would concentrate their enforcement efforts. In the first year of the project, the Target Zero Teams are credited with saving 70 lives. Many obstacles were overcome to have so many law enforcement agencies working as one team. This award honors the people who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help make this project so successful.