Sunday, January 21, 2024
It's National Passenger Safety Week
The goal of National Passenger Safety Week (Jan. 21-28) is to promote safe driving practices and prevent unsafe ones by empowering passengers to speak up when their lives are in danger due to a reckless driver.
We Save Lives, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit, and the National Road Safety Foundation launched the campaign in 2022 to empower passengers to speak up when their lives or those of others are in danger from reckless drivers. Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) added the campaign to their national calendar.
The goal is to promote safe driving practices and prevent unsafe ones by empowering passengers to speak up when their lives are in danger due to a reckless driver. So far more than 60 other organizations have joined the coalition. Passengers accounted for 24 percent of passenger vehicle fatalities nationwide in 2020, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
It may be easy to recognize reckless in movies or television but less so in real life. Passengers can do simple things to help, and not just ask for keys if a friend is impaired. There are less obvious signs of reckless driving and actions that put passengers and drivers in danger. For example, passengers can volunteer to be a "designated texter." That way a driver isn't tempted to text while driving. Passengers can also help navigate rather than have a driver distracted by instructions from a GPS device. Here are some more tips for what passengers can do if a situation arises where they or others feel unsafe.
Visit nationalpassengersafety.org for more information.