I am counting on President Obama’s statements related to gun violence also being applied toward the ongoing public health problem of traffic fatalities (or more clearly, people being killed on the road).
First I read Obama’s statement, “If there’s even one thing we can do, if there’s just one life we can save—we’ve got an obligation to try.” And now I hear that he is saying, “We can’t accept this carnage. . .”
How about the highway carnage? “One of America’s more egregious public health afflictions, deaths and injuries in car crashes, is being massively ignored.” – See more at: http://www.fairwarning.org/2012/09/a-strange-indifference-to-highway-carnage/#sthash.AI0IcziI.dpuf
That article also informs us, “Despite more than 30,000 deaths and more than 2.2 million crash injuries per year, highway safety has largely fallen off the political radar screen. Since 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson publicly confronted a hostile auto industry by demanding, and getting, new laws governing the safety of automobiles, more than two million Americans have died of crash injuries. Since then no president has taken a forceful public stand in favor of strong government action to counter the death toll.”
I’d say it’s time to take a stand, President Obama. Set a national Vision Zero goal and sign a Vision Zero Executive Order.
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