I suppose we all aspire to be part of something bigger than ourselves, but yesterday was, by any measure, an experience on a different level.
I was invited by the National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS) to attend the launch of a ten-year international campaign to prevent five million traffic fatalities during the next ten years. The program called the “Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020.” The initiative was introduced in multiple locations around the United States and worldwide. As one would expect, safe teen driving is one of the “pillars” of the program, and thus I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility by being in attendance.
The international, long-term program coincides with May being National Youth Traffic Safety Month, which NOYS spearheads.
The first part of the Launch — on a spectacular spring morning, in a park on the north side of the U.S. Capital building — was led by the Hon. Norman Mineta, Chairman, Make Roads Safe North America, and U.S. Secretary of Transportation from 2001 to 2006. In addition, the campaign has recruited Grover from Sesame Street, because teaching important traffic safety messages to kids will be a critical part of the program’s bottom-up effort to change the culture around the world that has been, in too many cases, alarmingly indifferent to traffic safety. At the launch, Secretary Mineta was kind enough to introduce me and several other attendees who have lost a loved one in a traffic accident. So, in the photo that accompanies this post, you will find Secretary Mineta, Grover, and me. (I will assume that you can figure out who is who!)
After the morning launch, I participated in a Traffic Safety Expo in the Rayburn House Office Building, at which I was privileged to talk about this blog with the leadership of the national traffic safety community. We ended the day with a Congressional briefing on recent work by the Center for Disease Control and several leading research hospitals.
Overall, quite a day — the people assembled, the magnitude of the challenge ahead, and the honor of being able to make small contributions to an effort to save millions of lives.
