Transportation Department, Businesses Launch First "Drive Safely at Work Week"

Rodney E. Slater, United States Secretary of Transportation
April 17, 1997

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, April 17, 1997
Contact:  Tim Hurd
Tel. No. (202) 366-9550

REMARKS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY
SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION RODNEY E. SLATER
NETWORK OF EMPLOYERS FOR TRAFFIC SAFETY (NETS)
NATIONAL DRIVE SAFELY AT WORK WEEK
APRIL 17, 1997
WASHINGTON, D.C.

There was a time when government always led the campaign for safer roads. But with the leadership of PHH, and UPS, and the dozens of other members of the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety, a new era of public-private partnership for safety has begun. Businesses are pushing, along with government, for safer roads, and I thank you for that.

Beginning Sunday, this week is: "Drive Safely at Work Week." I want to send a simple message to the American worker: be responsible whether you're driving to the job, on the job, or home from the job.

The President and I believe that driving is a privilege that comes with responsibilities. When 40,000 people die a year on our highways, clearly people are not acting as responsibly as they ought to. And the behavior is not just wrong. It is illegal. It kills.

Nationwide, traffic accidents are right behind heart disease and cancer as the leading cause of death. And in the workplace, traffic crashes are the leading cause of death. They cost American employers $55 billion a year.

When I became Transportation Secretary, I said safety would be me my highest priority. My predecessors saw deaths on our highways drop from 50,000, when the Department began 30 years ago, to 40,000 today.

Every time there was a drop it was because there was a push. Be it states mandating seat belt use, automakers putting in new equipment, increased enforcement, or be it mothers educating us against drunk driving -- we inched our way down in fatalities.

But let me say this: we must do better than 40,000 deaths. I will try, every day and every way, to do better.

In my first 30 days, I asked Congress, at a time of budget cutting, for a 25 percent increase in safety programs over the next six years as part of the bill to fund highways and transit. I hope, in a bipartisan way, we can get that for our country.

Yesterday, at the White House, the President set a new national goal to increase seat belt use from the 68 percent who buckle up today, to 85 percent by the year 2000. It will save more than 4,000 lives.

Don't think about that as an increase of 17 percent, the only number that matters is saving 4,000 more lives -- 4,000 mothers, fathers, and children.

The President wants every state to pass primary seat belt laws, where police can ticket drivers and passengers for simply not buckling up. When states pass them, as 11 states and the District of Columbia have, seat belt use goes up, on average, 15 percentage points.

And, next week, we will mobilize businesses, and their millions of employees. We aren t asking employees to do anything out of the ordinary. We re asking them to obey the laws -- buckle up, don't drink and drive, don t speed. We re simply asking them to take seriously the responsibilities that come with the privilege to drive.

I believe safety begins at home. I know too well the tragedies, because on my second week on the job, the DOT family lost two employees -- when a car hit Paul Ackerman and Dick Wakeman as they walked near our building. So, next week we are initiating SAFEDOT, a program to provide safety messages to our family, the DOT family.

Today, when I leave here, I am embarking on a five-day, 10- state tour of our transportation system from Maryland to Maine -- and every state in between. Tomorrow morning, I will be in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, where, yes, they love transportation. On behalf of President Clinton, I will give them a check to help them as they invest a billion dollars to improve their transit system.

When Thomas Jefferson visited Philadelphia, sitting at Market and 7th Streets to draft the Declaration of Independence, he wrote of the unalienable rights of "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness." The right to drive was not among them.

It is a privilege. A privilege that has given 20th century Americans mobility and a lifestyle like no other. But we can not take away the rights Jefferson gave us, because of aggressive and drunk and drugged drivers who murder on wheels.

Together, with our partners in safety, we will make America a safer place.

Thank you,

Source:  National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)