Greg Zaffke & Imre Szauter, from Crash Coalition, will be attending & blogging from the Lifesavers Conference, March 27-29 in Phoenix, AZ.
This is a national conference on highway safety priorities for government, law enforcement, advocacy groups, etc. They will have informational breakout sessions as well as an exhibitor hall for the safety gadget industry.
We’re very interested if there will be any mention of prosecution of distracted drivers that cause fatal crashes, checking out all the gadgets & technologies purported to solve the problem of distracted driving as well as monitoring any mention of motorcycle, bicycle, and pedestrian safety & awareness.
Imre Szauter is also the government relations manager for the American Motorcycle Association, so he will be vigilantly watching for any and all mention of motorcycle safety & awareness for us and the AMA.
So check back & stay informed!
Starting a blog to provide a victim/advocate viewpoint on the inner workings of the fight against distracted driving has been a goal that’s been on my mind for a while now. So I’ve got TONS of stuff to report on from the past couple years as well as keeping up with the current distracted driving zeitgeist.
I plan to highlight the gaping holes in our current & proposed policies for combating & prosecuting the overlooked pandemic of distracted driving as well as applaud the success stories in motorist education & awareness, prosecution of offenders and the empowerment of victims to have a voice in the process.
This is truly a battle of the automotive & mobile technology industries VS. victim & safety advocates. The government is simply trying to mediate instead of solve the problem outright.
To quote a passage from Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe at Any Speed”:
“A transportation specialist, Wilfred Owen, wrote in 1946, ‘There is little question that the public will not tolerate for long an annual traffic toll of forty to fifty thousand fatalities.’ Time has shown Owen to be wrong.
Unlike aviation, marine, or rail transportation, the highway transport system can inflict tremendous casualties and property damage without in the least affecting the viability of the system. Plane crashes, for example, jeopardize the attraction of flying for potential passengers and therefore strike at the heart of the air transport economy. They motivate preventative efforts.
The situation is different on the roads.
…
In fact, the gigantic costs of the highway carnage in this country support a service industry. A vast array of services - medical, police, administrative, legal, insurance, automotive repair, and funeral - stand equipped to handle the direct and indirect consequences of accident (crash) injuries. Traffic accidents (crashes) create economic demands for these services running into the billions of dollars. It is in the post-accident (crash) response that lawyers and physicians and other specialists labor.
This is where the renumeration lies and this is where the talent and energies go. Working in the area of prevention of these casualties earns few fees.
…
But the true mark of a humane society must be what it does about prevention of accident (crash) injuries, not the cleaning up of them afterward.”
So buckle up, it’s bound to be a bumpy ride!
Greg Zaffke - President & Founder of Crash Coalition
