Drive 'N Arrive #4

The goal of every vehicle journey is to arrive without a ticket or a crash.

This is the fourth in a series with updates and tips about safety on the road.

The children came over, curious, strikingly informed and dressed in a kaleidoscope of colors. They showed up at our SafeRoadsMD booth during “Pedestrian Safety Day,” held in Rockville on May 9^th. 

Sponsored by the Vision Zero Youth Ambassador program organized by the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT), the event publicized the profound need to increase awareness and intensify improvements in safe driving and other activities.

Prioritizing pedestrian safety drives the need for increased caution, patience and prudence. 

Young families with mostly elementary and middle school kiddos strolled the grounds amid a plethora of safety exhibits designed to engage their attention and encourage thoughtful dialog about keeping Marylanders protected and safe from harm. 

The SafeRoadsMD table featured a white board with five major driving impediments, or risk factors. We invited children to place magnetic dots, color-coded for severity, on the categories they thought were most harmful. 

This activity sparked conversations about unsafe driving, a topic about which these young 

attendees were well-informed, especially not driving under the influence of alcohol or under the spell of mobile phones. 

(L-R, John Seng, John Becker, Mindy Badin and husband Joe Badin)

Staffing our booth were volunteer/advocates and Olney residents Mindy Badin, with her husband Joe; Rockville's John Becker; Clarksburg's John Seng and myself, a Silver Spring resident. We talked about the event and considered ways to enhance and maybe, how to help expand the experience to a broader swath of attendees for the future. 

Similarly, we considered how attendees were able to extrapolate the learning from this event to employ better habits on the road. 

Tip 1:

Have you compared your driving attentiveness with and without listening to music, talk radio, or audiobooks? Depending on the person and the situation, these activities can either improve or district one's focus. It may be interesting to experiment. For example, try driving with none of these auditory additions and observe your mood and your concentration. See what this reveals about your driving!

Tip 2:

Do you have a new driver in the home? Something to consider is rewarding them for every trip that does not result in an accident, a close call or a ticket. The reward can be simple and individualized for your family member. 

Send your reward ideas to me at Rhona.Bosin@SafeRoadsMD.org, and I’ll publish the first 15 that I receive! 

Tip 3: Become a member of SafeRoadsMD today. Click here to learn more!

• By Rhona Bosin