Global Road Safety Week and Global Youth Traffic Safety Month
On May 8, ITE joined with National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS) and Make Roads Safe: The Campaign for Global Road Safety to kick off Global Road Safety Week and Global Youth Traffic Safety Month. A ribbon cutting event was held at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC and then attendees participated in the Long Short Walk and Roll, a worldwide walk for road safety initiated by the Zenani Mandela Campaign.
The outpouring of support from around world and high-profile US stakeholders at the event was amazing, including Norman Y. Mineta, Chairman of Make Roads Safe North America and former Secretary of Transportation; Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Deborah A. P. Hersman, Chair, National Transportation Safety Board; David Strickland, Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Kweku Mandela (grandson of Nelson Mandela), Dr. Regina Benjamin, U.S. Surgeon General; Ebrahim Rasool, South African Ambassador to the U.S.; and the event key note Ray LaHood, Secretary, US Department of Transportation.
Thomas W. Brahms, ITE’s Executive Director and CEO, served as a Walk and Roll Ambassador and participated in the ribbon cutting.
Global Road Safety Week is an important milestone in the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020. ITE endorsed the "decade of action" and actively supports the initiative through ongoing dialogue, training and technical resource development. Phil Caruso, ITE’s Deputy Executive Director and I also attended the event. We walked, but did not roll! We'll save that for the Boston Annual Meeting. There was lots of traffic safety swag given out, I picked up these "eyes on the road" shades.
As you can see below, Sec. LaHood wore his the entire event!
NOYS also presented “youth choice” awards to leaders in various industries for supporting youth traffic safety. It was heartening to see young people making positive efforts to educate their peers, raise awareness in the area of traffic safety and ultimately making a difference in saving lives around the world.
P.S. Clemson ITE Student Chapter, I slipped the Surgeon General one of your wristbands. She thought it was great.