| |
Rep. John Lewis and Supremes Mary Wilson Present
Auto Safety Award
By Ed Swailes
Special to the Informer
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, President/CEO Rev. Jesse
Jackson and Atlanta Bureau Chief, Janice
Mathis received the first Annual Floyd Washington Auto
Safety Advocacy Award, presented at the
4th Annual Auto Safety Forum held last week during the
35th Congressional Black Caucus-
Annual Legislative Conference (CBCF-ALC) in Washington.
Rainbow/PUSH
has a Safe Teen Driving Program that focuses on high school drivers. Rep. John
Lewis said that programs like this one, means lives are being saved. It is
helping to turn around those heartbreaking statistics by teaching safe driving
habits and decreasing the number of needless youth-involved auto-tragedies.
“As the sponsor of the high school Safe Teen Driving Program” we are proud of
this important and successful
auto safety initiative,” said Evern Cooper Epps, President of The UPS
Foundation and Vice President of UPS Corporate Relations. “This program proves
that improving highway safety and reducing the devastating effects of reckless
driving can be accomplished by providing our youth with the fundamental skills
of safe driving.”
Rev. Jackson gave brief remarks on the tragedies surrounding automobile deaths
in the country. He indicated, “That automobile accidents and second-hand smoke
create more deaths in the African American Community than any other cause.” He
went on to say, “we need to begin to address these problems in a more serious
manner.”
Sponsors of the forum were American Family Insurance of Madison, Wisconsin,
Chevrolet-Safe Kids Program and UPS. Mary Wilson, after the award presentation
joined the other Auto Safety Forum panelist members that included Albert Ware,
GM Product Reliability and Crash wor-thiness and Janice Mathis, Rainbow/PUSH
and Randy Payton, Publisher, African American on Wheels. Wilson conveyed her
experience in a heartfelt, telling of her 14 year-old son's death due to an
auto accident. She used her passionate oratory to explain that “we all,
including the young, middle age and senior citizen have a role to play in auto
safety from belting–up to not drinking and driving.”
Panelist, Randy Payton, publisher of African Americans on Wheels provide
information on African American safe driving habit that show a need for much
improvement. Some of data revealed at the Forum included, more
African-American males between the age of 19 and 24 die from auto accidents
than gun shoots. Nationally, there is a dilemma of drunk driving in all
communities for which Police make 1.5 million driving-under-the-influence
arrests each year. Of the 42,000 highway deaths in 2003, 17,000 were alcohol
related. Also 85% of all fatal car accidents occur because of human error and
the biggest mistake people make is not wearing their seatbelts. Seatbelts save
15,000 lives a year.
Ed Swailes works for The Writer’s Syndicate, Inc., which promoted this event
Return
|
