Drive Time
Web memorial seeks safety awareness
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
Fifty thousand people die on American roads every year. Each one was more than a statistic; each was a person worth remembering.
That's the driving idea behind the American Roadway Memorial, an interesting transportation site on the Internet. The site provides intimate details about the lives — and deaths — of a few people killed in traffic accidents each year.
The site is the brainchild of Frederick Mottola, executive director of the National Institute for Driver Behavior, who was in Honolulu recently for a conference on traffic safety. Mottola thinks the more we can put real faces to the victims of traffic accidents, the more we will be able to change the way we drive, making our roads safer for everyone.
The American Roadway Memorial (www.nidb.org) was created to "transform grim and impersonal statistics into personal accounts of life and love and loss," Mottola said. It also demonstrates how driving behavior can change over time.
One of the first accounts on the site is Mottola's brother, who was killed 20 years ago by a hit-and-run driver while riding a bicycle.
"A few weeks before the crash, the bicyclist had gone into a sporting goods store to purchase a bicycle helmet. In 1981, when this crash took place, it was not a commonly sold item, so the helmet was on order at the time of the crash."
The driver turned himself in to police the morning after the crash, Mottola said. According to his statement of the amount of alcohol he admitted drinking, his blood alcohol concentration level would have been more than .20 — more than twice the limit for DWI.
"The driver was convicted and sentenced to 30 days in jail, one-year suspension of his driver's license and a $350 fine," Mottola said. "In 1981, the laws and the mentality within the court system was tolerant toward drunk drivers. Today, we are less tolerant."
The profiles of other victims nationwide make for some gruesome, even macabre, reading. For a small fee, friends and family members are invited to send information about the traffic accident and the victim, and receive an online picture, memorial and guest book, where others can record their own reaction to each individual history.
Sometimes the memorial information is stark and detached: "Beau A. Bartosiak, 17, of Oxford, CT, died early Sunday while riding in a car that crashed into a guard rail. The loss of a loved one will never be forgotten and will always be honored on this site."
Other times, you can feel the gut-wrenching anger and lingering resentment that traffic deaths cause: "Dad, I always told you that you were a lousy driver. You just thought everyone would stop for you. Why did you have to make that U-turn? Thank God Tyler is OK ... Please everyone, it's not that important to rush into traffic."
Mottola said such public sharing is part of the healing process for many people who have lost a loved one in a traffic accident. Just like Hawai'i residents tend to put up mini-memorials at the site of a fatal crash, others choose to put a lasting memorial online, he said.
So far, there are a couple of hundred memorials on the site, Mottola said. None are from Hawai'i.
Mike Leidemann writes about transportation issues. Call him at 525-5460, write him at The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802 or e-mail mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com
