How often have you seen an effort fail because people lost their focus on an important matter? In the world of baseball that happenstance is called taking your eye off the ball. In our world it is called staying on message. From time to time your association has been approached to address safety issues that do not quite fit our mission and message. My dear friend Steve Austin has a phrase to cover such times. He has often reminded all of us to tend to our own knitting.
To that end, we here at Respondersafety.com have been laboring in the vineyards of Highway Safety for nearly a dozen years now. What started out as a tribute to Joseph Krobah, Sr., a friend and fellow fire police officer, who was killed in the line of duty on Interstate 81 in , has grown into a positive, nation-wide force in the world of safety.
We have been able to have an impact on the regulations contained within the federal Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). In addition we have been able to have requirements included in the National Fire Protection Association's Professional Qualifications Standard for Firefighters, NFPA 1001.
Our association has also been successful in getting two of the Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives from the National Fallen Firefighter's Foundation devoted to highway safety issues. One of our greatest accomplishments was the Public Safety Officers vest which is now mandated by federal regulations. Our latest success is the decision of the National Fire Protection Association to allow the creation of a technical committee which will address the highway safety operational area. Very soon you will be seeing more on this critical new safety effort.
However, as you might imagine, in spite of these successes, there are times in our work-a-day world when we all wonder if we are truly having an impact on our chosen field. Let me tell you that during the week of August 16 part of that doubt was dispelled in a most positive manner. A number of us were in attendance on August 17 at the Delaware City, Delaware, fire station for a most important event. Governor Jack Markell signed a new law which increased the penalties for the 'Move-Over' law.
The provisions of Senate Bill S-205 increased the penalties for those people who strike an emergency responder, highway worker, or tow truck operator when they are in the performance of their designated duties. It will now be charged as a Class F felony in those cases where our personnel are struck while the violator is in the act of breaking the new rule. This provides another weapon in the law enforcement arsenal that can punish those who actions injure our people.
As important as that regulation is to , another critical element of our highway safety efforts premiered that night. For quite some time now we have been working on a variety of projects which are designed to increase the public's awareness of the dangers which you and I face when we are operating on the highways and byways of our nation.
We have long felt that as much as we did for the safety of our emergency responders and highway workers, there was still another area which needed to be addressed. A public education effort was needed to get our message out. The first element of our new public safety education effort premiered on August 17 in . We now have a public safety announcement entitled, "Slow Down and Move Over."
The theme is simple and our story only runs for 30 seconds. The message asks viewers to commit the following message to memory. They are asked to remember that "…When you see lights, vests, and reflectors, please give us some room. Please slow down and move over." This is an extremely important message which was put forward by actual emergency responders and highway safety workers in . We met a number of them in .
We were fortunate to be able to have Rod Ammon from Stonehouse Media produce this video under a grant from the U.S. Fire Administration and the U.S. Department of Justice. This video will now be reproduced and distributed through a national ad campaign.
My friends, we have come quite a ways since our first meeting back in 1998 at Halfway, . However, as far as we have come, we still have a long ways to go. If you doubt this, just go over to the Line of Duty Death section, and then jump to our Struck-By section. We still have many rows to hoe.
Let me close by sharing an important operating principle with you. We here at the Emergency Response Safety Institute (ERSI) and Respondersafety do not quarrel with people. We seek to influence them by spinning a web of knowledge around them and leaving them to draw their own conclusions.
Are there people out there today doing unsafe things? You bet. However, we intend to keep chipping away at the wall which separates us from the world of total safety. A safer world lies out there just ahead of us. At times like this, I like to pause and ponder the pictures of the Berlin Wall falling at the end of the Cold War. Respondersafety is one of the elements in the effort to tear down that wall.