Be safe

SEMCOG tries to emphasize the importance of traffic safety throughout the year, but especially as we are entering the holiday season. Traffic crashes have such a devastating impact on families and businesses in Southeast Michigan. Throughout the year, you have heard various messages from us:

• Don’t drink and drive
• Don’t text and drive
• Buckle your safety belt
• Don’t speed
• Don’t veer for deer

The intent of all of these slogans is to remind you that driving a car can be a dangerous thing and it requires you to give your complete attention into driving the car safely. Unfortunately, the simple act of driving becomes routine to the point where many people think they can drive without giving it their full attention. That’s when bad things can happen and often do.

We talk a lot about making our roads safer, spending dollars on road improvements, police patrols, messaging – and nothing seems to be working. We are on pace to exceed last year’s numbers in traffic fatalities and serious injury crashes. It has become almost common place to listen to traffic reports about another fatal crash. Whatever we are doing to try to address this situation is not enough because the numbers keep going up.

SEMCOG, working with MDOT, has developed a draft regional traffic safety plan that we are asking the public to review. The idea is to identify where and what types of traffic crashes are occurring and to prioritize actions that are specifically targeted to decrease the number of crashes – especially fatal and serious injury crashes. You can review the draft plan and send us your comments.

We are doing what we can do to bring awareness to this issue and to try to reduce the number and severity of avoidable traffic crashes. Please be sure that you are doing the same and giving the act of driving your total and complete attention every time you get behind the wheel.