Leaders hold safety summit, aim for zero traffic fatalities
Photos Available (thumbnails, captions below)
By ALYSON ZEPEDA
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX (Tuesday, Feb. 10) _ Addressing a summit on traffic safety Tuesday, Sgt. Tad Wygal of the Williams Police Department gestured to five empty white chairs next to the podium.
Bearing black ribbons, the chairs represented Matt Dent, Matthew Small, Elena Rivera, Prescott McDaniel and Jesse Buchmoyer, youths killed in 2007 when their car ran off a road on the outskirts of town and hit a tree. Wygal was the first officer on the scene.
“These chairs represent fatalities, but I also want you to know these chairs mean a lot more than that to me,” Wygal said. “These chairs have names; they do have faces. I associated with each one of them.”
Wygal told nearly 400 people attending the Zero Fatalities, Everyone Counts Safety Summit how he found those familiar faces in and around the little red car, how he talked with Buchmoyer, who died on the way to the hospital. The tragedy sent the whole community into mourning, and Wygal along with it, he said.
“I knew these kids. This is a small town, a place I patrol every day,” Wygal said. “This young driver (Dent), I can’t tell you how many times he was in my home.”
The summit focused on factors common to fatal accidents: seatbelt use, young drivers, speeding, impaired driving and failing to keep vehicles positioned safely on the road. Each was a factor in the Williams accident, Wygal said.
“It’s a tragedy for us too because prevention is all of our goals,” he said. “The key is our cooperation in educating the general public on particularly these five factors and show them how important that is.”
One person survived the crash, in which the victims, all between 15 and 21 years old, were traveling over 109 mph before their car left the roadway and hit a pine tree with so much force that the top of the tree snapped off. Only the driver was wearing a seatbelt.
“Any one of these factors can cause a fatality all by itself,” Wygal said. “But the lack of any one of these factors could also have saved some if not all of these young people from dying.”
Wygal said the tragedy led to road safety programs in schools and the community in Williams.
The summit brought together law enforcement officials, emergency medical personnel, educators and road safety engineers to learn about and discuss topics such as increasing seatbelt use, deterring intoxicated drivers and keeping pedestrians safe.
On average, three people die on Arizona’s roads each day, organizers said.
Floyd Roehrich, state engineer for the Arizona Department of Transportation, said that humanizing the statistics is an important motivation in making Arizona safer.
“Each one of those people has a name, goals, and a life path. Every one counts,” Roehrich said.
^___=
PHOTOS: Click thumbnails to see full-resolution images and download; caption information is in the file under File>File Info.
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-SAFETY SUMMIT: Sgt. Tad Wygal of the Williams Police Department discusses a 2007 crash that killed five youths during a safety summit that brought together hundreds of people from around Arizona. The program’s goal: zero fatalities on Arizona roads. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Alyson Zepeda)
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-SAFETY SUMMIT: Sgt. Tad Wygal of the Williams Police Department pointed to five empty chairs representing youths killed in a 2007 crash in his community. Wygal was the keynote speaker at a safety summit Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009, that together hundreds of people from around Arizona. The program’s goal: zero fatalities on Arizona roads. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Alyson Zepeda)
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-SAFETY SUMMIT: This exhibit at a safety summit that brought together hundreds of people from around Arizona on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009, educates against running red lights. The car shown was broadsided at an intersection. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Alyson Zepeda)