Every Fifteenth Mile (1978)

okay if you let me have your attention I've asked you to come here today to discuss with us in a planning session some long-range goals and objectives for traffic safety of course it goes without saying we're seeking attitudinal changes we go simple solution in your program every 15th mile in the United States lies within the borders of Texas you can't because we have such a great multiplicity of straight-8 individual and separate jurisdictions uniform traffic control devices the economic loss is over a billion dollars a year this of the problems in the Panhandle this state certainly would not be the same problems that we'd see in the valley or in East Texas or even here in Central Texas accidents of course do not tend to congregate they're diverse we have almost an equal proportion of accidents in the rural areas as we do in the urban areas but yet the problems that caused those accidents are certainly not the same and we have a concept called the community impact program that we have in a number of jurisdictions in fact in just about all the larger jurisdictions the cities across this state but how about the local communities what are the answers to their problems we can't plan a a program here in Austin that you can just take out an overlay over every city large small in any geographical area we have in the state and it will work so what we've done is to go to the local communities through the community impact program and said look at your own problems identify your own problems and try to come up with some solutions for them and will assist you in technical information and funding where we can to help you solve your own problems there's where the local traffic safety coordinator has the ability in his own community to communicate the traffic safety messages frankly people in the smaller communities don't care about information sometimes as it comes from Austin there it doesn't affect them or they think it doesn't affect them but when it comes from their own community their own spokespersons in that area it has much more meaning to them well I think education is the most thing in a traffic safety program enforcement's the only way that you can change the way the majority adult drivers drive and we think if we can work with the real young children in the school that we can give them a good backing in traffic safety rules rules of the road and we're going to continue our traffic education program all the way through the sixth grade of insulin and by the time the child becomes a driver he already has fixed ideas in his mind of how he should behave as a driver and he's not copying what he's seen his parents do a lot of teenage brother-sister I'm going up to the school now to meet with a bunch of kids it's working on their safety Ranger kit doing their artwork I'm kind of anxious to see how it comes out by me just been stand with them and seeing how they're doing on their slogans and their artwork it gives me a chance to talk to them a little bit about traffic safety without it being in a structured classroom situation and most of the kids call me mr. Hawthorne but let them call me Ronnie and I just know a lot of them how y'all doing today listen I'm sorry I'm late I got tied up at City Hall and just couldn't get here any quicker and I'm sorry that you had to wait on me but I wanted to come by today and tell you about something real special that we're going to ask y'all to do so if y'all of listen real close we'll get started on a very special project and it's called a safest shoulder the traffic safety Ranger kid is probably the best thing that I've ever seen done for traffic safety so we'll give you some some art paper like kids are given specific subjects such as dummies don't play in the street well dummies the best word a third of fourth graders got going home date but you know that's their thing and you give a kid this sheet of paper then he's to illustrate dummies don't play in the streets and he does his own artwork well after the kids in the school do all their art working their thing it's all gathered back up and mailed back to Austin and converted into a film strip and not only have you taught them traffic safety while they're doing their artwork then they see their show come alive so to speak on the screen in front of them they see their artwork they learn the safety rules about not hanging your arms out the wind about wearing a seatbelt about not playing between parked cars and it's the best thing that I haven't honestly I've ever seen for traffic safety for juveniles Lyon Street and directly between the school and the housing project and it has been a chaotic situation so we understand so with this subcommittee recommends that Lyon Street be designated one-way southbound on a 24-hour basis to make traffic safety work you've got to get the public involved that's why group like our citizen Safety Advisory Committee are so important no parking zone to be established along the west side of Lyon Street by the school and at 24 hour parking be allowed on the east side of Lyons this is one of those cases their responsibilities not only include advising the city staff or things that they feel like need to be done but also they have a responsibility to generate the input from the community toward the eventual goal in education which is changing drivers attitude we had reached an impasse where we have the citizen group wanting a particular thing and the staff saying is our record you know that we would not normally allow this this is where the citizens are allowed to come in and make their their case and one of the purposes of this this this committee or there's any of the subcommittee's is to try to handle these things at this level rather than these people having to go to City Council so I think this is a classic case of of how this the subcommittee works other than just approving or recommending approval for sidewalks mr. Chairman I move that these recommendations be adopted are there any questions second all in favor of this motion signify by the usual saying aye opposed motion carries every day in Dallas there in excess of a hundred thousand trips into the city let's just take the person that let's say he lives in DeSoto when he comes to work he goes through maybe Duncanville Dallas and he might work in Richardson which is not uncommon with a major employer of the area Texas Instruments and Richardson so going to work he might go through about four different jurisdictions and it's very difficult to confine traffic safety to jurisdictional boundaries just is not that sort of a problem because of the amount of freeway we have 101 mile I think to be exact and because of limited resources we don't really have the manpower we need on the freeways to do the job we need to do so it's very important that there be a coordinated effort and enforcement particularly on the freeway system the problem as I can see is what can we do in an area as large as Dallas and with limited resources well I think the key to deplane John is going to be identifying the intends and the locations of the offense that we're going to try to stop be more selective in the type of within the deployment of our men find a selective enforcement style where we locate where in the query and the times that the div eyes are going to be on the streets and the poor in our manpower accordingly I agree concentrate your manpower in the area where our problem has already they needed a sign there was a side put there if we had a intersection that had a serious accident well the next day we'd put up a stop sign there and which is really no way to regulate your traffic arm the control of it but it was just really one thing we need to do until this traffic signs program came along he found that that's the rule of thumb in the communities we've been working in if there has been an accident at an intersection signs immediately go there this is the intersection that I wanted you to look at Jim and I do not feel that the four-way is warranted because the traffic volume is not enough through this intersection let's just have a look at it well is this where you had reference to that bus obstructing the view of that stop sign yes we got able to see the sign as you'll see we have a school bus parked right here a person coming out parallel to this school bus is not going to be able to see that stop sign so he won't know that he's supposed to stop and generally I know our survey the other day that this final placement program for mayor Mischka is just one of several we're working on we had one night Tasker which is in Hill County one in Meridian which is in Bosque County we have mark and moody Leroy the West & McLennan County and Mejia and limestone County the smaller communities cannot support a full-time position usually what happens in our office that we will receive a phone call from an official and Jim and I will meet with the official and he will say we have this particular problem and then we will work toward the solution of the problem whatever it may be it may involve a contract or it may involve just some education for the citizens we're finding many of the same problems in the communities of course there is something that is unique to each community but we're finding that they are having problems in the downtown area around the railroads and in the school zones what I am doing right now is identifying the programs that are available in the area the problems that are here and trying to match programs for problems we used to say our goal is traffic safety and then we 81 worded related traffic safety management and I think it's really where we're going is just try to manage better the utilization of all the funds we have you know whether they're state funds or federal funds they they're all going to work on the same problem quite frankly there's just not enough dollars to go around to fund all of our needs so we have to be realistic and pick out identify what our specific problems are and we do this by establishing priorities what do we have to do now what's going to have the greatest impact where are we going to get our biggest return for our dollar if you agree that we are indeed trustees of tax money and that's really what we are and that that money is limited and the need is great then it was obvious we had to go to some better way of applying those limited funds to this tremendous thing we call traffic safety problem and I think out of that realization became the implementation of management by objectives as the philosophy of this office most of the cities that that we call community impact program cities they're submit a comprehensive plan to this office each year and they update that plan and this plan addresses their problems and the proposed counter activity to address the problem as well as projected cost for implementation so it gives us a lot of basic information to make management decisions at all you know we use the traffic safety plan count as a Bible for traffic safety we identified our problems we found out where they were and what we needed to do with them and the different ways we could go about correcting them but without the plan to go by we couldn't systematically approach these problems and really try and stop the collisions and if you stopped collisions in one spot they're going to move to another so we keep pin maps and traffic data in our plan and it helps us find out why we're having wrecks and what we can do to keep our people from having collisions in some of the big cities where they have traffic safety coordinators they can stay in an office and do their job and make a few meetings because of the way that's structured but in a town the size of my city I can't sit on my Duff in my office and get anything done without the people in the administration support our traffic section program would have fizzled in the first six months because it's too big a job for one man to tackle and one person can't do it we can get this uptick you know it's a good thing we've got our machine and we'd be spending about 30 days wait the pen maps represent four years of accident history in our city and each color pen represents a different type accident built the large number of collisions around at this intersection here they are again for this year they continue to be a problem there were a problem again in 75 we've now got a grant of proof for new signalization for this intersection and we think it's going to reduce the collisions because most of them are left turn accidents and we're installing protected left turns I would like to see the people of our town expect the services of a traffic safety department no matter where it's located in the municipal structure just as they expect police and fire protection if you started based on priorities on human injuries and human lives traffic safety would take a higher priority than some of our other city services 662 our 663 our report to the West End of the Corinth Street Viaduct they're setting up a roadblock over there the remainder of the our elements will be owned industrial you've already got your regular freeway selective enforcement units Orion in service out there on a freeway so we'll combine our activities to the industrial area and the regular color coverage out there will be German j bj martin MA riding jure JP diamond city Starks biggie riding jure and RM Wilson those are your regular officers that you will be covering so just keep alert they call for cover just covering just give your location where you're starting from because we might have an element closer by that is just keep on the ball six and four [Music] yes we're behind a possible 15 unblocked and often dust from our mail how about the reserves is that working using the Reserve Officer you bet that saves a lot of officer time they're involved in the transporting of these DWI banners so we can run on breathless and you're my parent [Music] [Applause] [Music] what still northbound industrial pulsing in the roadway him tonight he got deployed in northeast area channel D did guy enforcement in other words we're concentrating all the officers in a high-density bar in Bergen we've also notified the area of seniors just outside our city but the area we're working so if they want their selectively important to a different thoroughfare in their family and heaviest concentrations gonna be where the bar is I'm gonna try to catch these people before they get too far out on the street see if we can get him off the street jail well you're not putting my notice out on the on the freeways that such most of the concentration apparently the way you said it's off of the freeway why is that why do you do that instead of having them out on the pretty ones well when we can we would rather get the drunk driver before he gets on the freeway and aside from that it's harder and more dangerous to apprehend one once he gets on the freeway goes to the high-speed is involved if he gets on the highway up on the freeway it can just you know I'd get lethal up there [Music] in Clinton Community College is a great resource here the college can transcend the political boundaries and work with all of the communities instead of being partial to one at the college there's the public information office so publicity is carried on smoothly we also have a media center and many other supportive departments that can help us to project our programs they have accepted our office here because we have always provided a community service and they just see this as an extension of community service Jim is an area traffic engineer he works not only with the six counties that are in my jurisdiction but also in seven counties to the south so he he works with 13 counties he's really making an impact he makes my job so much easier a lot of people feel like that the answer to all the traffic problems can be handled by a sign which is actually not the case some traffic problems can be made better by the use of a sign so we can help in the engineering aspect of it by considering design factors considering past accidents considering the physical environment that symbolic we can actually come up with a better idea of what should be done to improve the situation the Sheriff's Office knew that I was working in this area and I had worked for the Sheriff's Office before so I had good contacts there they asked me if there were any way that I could work with them to send two men to a breathalyzer operator school because they were getting more and more DWIs in on the weekend and it was difficult for the DPS men to handle the load and there was a school that was going on at this time at East Texas State so we sent two men to the breathalyzer operator school so now they have the men who are qualified to run the breathalyzer instrument [Applause] what else am what you have reformed a quick stop hold it in tender gentle the new 917 [Music] motorcycle safety for children is one area where an educational program would be a great benefit to the community you can start in first grade with some type of educational program for them this would involve pamphlets and lectures and even workshops for the children and getting people who are well liked by children in the community for example Billy Malone and his motorcycle club the road runners here in Waco have done a lot for children in the area of motorcycle I think that the drivers and the pedestrians would appreciate it as much as the parent man I said well I maybe I could help some of the young kids by trying to start some kind of safety class to keep them home just from ripping and running off the street you know up and down the street so the motorcycle manufacturers have started schools but yours is the first school in this area that I know of that it's done by an individual just because he wants to do it and he sees the need for children to learn something about motorcycle safety evaluation of engineering improvements takes about a four year span to get a true evaluation so what we've attempted to do and we still have a long way to go is to integrate all of these various record input systems into one comprehensive database we've been in a I guess in a developmental stage of our designing our database to to tell us to give us more yard sticks and more measurement to put on our programs to say are we really doing the most effective job that we can I think it's what we've been doing is trying to develop our database to that he will tell us what the way we ought to really be spending our money [Applause] you know the nice thing about safety town is that city employees didn't build it volunteers from the Traffic Safety Commission and the fire department put all the buildings together and they're letting us use this fire truck to clean the walls and everything off getting ready for a class different business people in Hurst Ulis and Bedford donated the money to pay for these little buildings and then we got them put up had a few summer classes last year then we got the school system to agree to make safety town part of the first grade curriculum so we're looking forward to this fall where we're going to have eighteen hundred first graders working in the little town and coming and spending time out here learning about traffic safety okay no questions we'll move on into the educational group as John Piggott who is a subcommittee chairman that group to outline where we're going with education okay these five areas we have decided to work in our area here a group of people from various communities Dallas Garland Mesquite Grand Prairie just to name a few decided that we needed to try to coordinate our efforts in the metro area to exchange information to determine common problems who hopefully get some projects going that would be conducted in more than one jurisdiction what cell if garland has a selective enforcement in Dallas can divert their limited resources to another area from that concept I'm sitting around drinking coffee talking about this finally came the Metro traffic safety Coordinating Committee advised the traffic is beginning to build up in those areas at this time we have a police report of a collision [Music] pedestrians sometimes have to cross the street okay are you possessed few concepts treated traffic light weight and silver lighter screen and all the cars have to talk if there is no light program in in the safest show on earth has an evaluation being done to see how much of this attitude and and this knowledge that had been derived from this program how much is retained by the by the children absolutely we've started to rather in-depth evaluation whereby will uses several counties in Texas to see the effect that we're having through this program on the fourth grade classrooms to see if these students are retaining the information they're being taught in regards to pedestrian bicycle and passenger safety we want to know right now if we can take a fourth grade student and teach him to buckle up when he becomes a driver if you really do want you what you hope to do and what you intend to do what's that going to do as far as public information and education is concerned philosophically you know what impact would it have upon the the whole philosophy of public information and education if we can document and prove bottom line the effectiveness of Education in the elementary schools that the majority of our programs and our funding will go into public education and this is Barna not only Texas but nationwide all of the states will see the merits of education first we have to document it and prove it that's where our funds will go where our efforts will go what does that mean that I don't care if you're flying from one bill into the other what does that mean in midair okay Group one hold up your hands okay we're Group one we're gonna let y'all walk first okay group two is gonna get to ride a big wheel first all right now y'all about ready to start riding the big wheels and Walker are y'all ready let's go start take me riding in the car car take me riding in the car car take to dine in the car car I'll take you riding in the car click click open up the door girls click back open up a door boys front door back door clickety clack take do bad name a car [Music] [Music] everybody white we got one running the red black what colors at lap time time riding on the front seat spread out spread along the backseat turn the key step on the starter I'll take you back to my car I'm gonna let you blow the horn I'll take you guys in the car home again I can take a roll all change in the car [Music] the Texas office of traffic safety implements its programs through managers in Austin and across the state and through local traffic safety coordinators in many of our cities and communities but their efforts alone are not enough your help is needed traffic safety ultimately is an individual responsibility something that touches each of our lives practically every day and with every 15th mile of America's streets and highways inside Texas borders we all have our work cut out for us why don't you find out what you can do to make a difference [Music] [Applause] [Music]