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REMARKS
FOR
THE HONORABLE NORMAN Y. MINETA
SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION
ALL
HANDS MEETING
WITH NHTSA, FMCSA AND FHWA
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JULY 16, 2003
1PM
I
want to thank everyone for taking time out of your busy schedules to come here
today.
This
event has been called an "all hands" meeting.
In the maritime tradition, when a commanding officer has something of the
utmost importance to convey, he would call all hands to muster and then address
the ship's crew.
That's
what I would like to do today - talk to you about something vitally important,
and to make a request of each of you.
I
look back at my two and a half years leading this Department, and I see how much
we have accomplished - how hard we have worked over this period of time.
We
have fought not one, but two wars. We
sent DOT personnel to every location where those wars were fought - from Ground
Zero to Afghanistan to Iraq. And as
I speak to you, we have DOT personnel in Baghdad working to open airports,
dredge harbors, and retool rail lines.
Now,
this is not the agenda we wrote for ourselves.
But it is the one that history has given to us.
And now it is time to acknowledge that history is calling us to another
important task. It is no less important than others that we've had, and the
stakes are no less significant.
It
is the battle to stop the death and injury on our roads and highways.
This
is a battle for which many of you have volunteered. It is one many of you have been fighting.
For many of you, it is the calling that has brought you to this
Department - it is the passion that fuels your work here.
Well,
the rest of us are going to join you in that passion and that calling.
This is an all-hands muster because I want everyone to know in your
agencies - in this Department - that our top priority for the next 18 months is
to use every tool available to reduce death and injury on our highways.
The
Department of Transportation has performed magnificently in providing for the
security for Americans traveling. We
now have to pivot and shift that energy and passion to providing for the safety
of the traveling American.
The
mission is very simple: Reduce
death and injury. The measure of
success is just as simple: Increase
the number of people using safety belts and reduce the number of impaired
drivers.
If
we do that, we win. If we fail -
Americans will continue to die on our nation's roads in unnecessary and
preventable crashes.
To
accomplish our goal, we must choose to end the acceptance of death on our roads.
More than 40,000 people last year died on our watch.
Newcomers to the statistic of this slaughter try and describe it in a way
that startles the listener.
They
say, "It's like a 737 crashing every day of the year."
Or, "It's a small American town wiped out every year."
While
both of these comparisons are tragically true, those of us who have worked on
this issue know there is something more insidious about this battle.
It
is the banality of these events that works to defeat our efforts.
It is the everyday, every minute crash, that happens so often, so
steadily, that it is no longer newsworthy except to the people whose lives are
devastated.
It
is not the drama of a 737 plane crash everyday.
It is the crashing of a thousand cars a day.
Every
day, across the nation, the alarm sounds in a thousand firehouses, a radio call
goes to a thousand police officers, and the doors to the emergency departments
and trauma centers swing open thousands of times.
And
everyday, right this minute, this afternoon, late tonight - a telephone will
ring, a doorbell will be rung, a police officer will show up at an office or at
a home to tell someone that the person they kissed good-by that morning is not
coming home ever again.
My
colleagues, providence has given us an opportunity to change that history.
If we do our jobs, fewer calls will be made.
If we succeed, thousands will never know this pain and heartache.
That's the job before us.
We
do not fool ourselves into thinking we can stop all crashes.
We accept the reality of our world where vehicles will crash into one
another unintentionally, and people will be killed and people will be injured.
But
what we do not accept is that people can drive without buckling up, or that they
can drive impaired. And that is
something we intend to do something about it.
We
are going to work to pass laws that require Americans to buckle up.
We are going to work on methods and practices that lower the number of
impaired drivers. Enforcement works, we'll support it. We know it does.
At
the same time, we intend to educate drivers to buckle up and to drive sober, and
we intend to engineer and use innovative new ways to reduce death and injury on
the road.
As
someone who's been in public service for more than forty years, whether as a
mayor, or as a Member of Congress, or as a Cabinet Secretary, I have learned
that the team you are working with has but a brief moment to create a legacy for
the public we serve.
Colleagues,
let us make this one of our legacies. Let
our accomplishment be that we reduce the number of times those firefighters,
those troopers, those paramedics, those doctors, and those nurses have to look
at another broken body.
Most
of you know that I have spent a fair amount of my time in a hospital this past
year. I have seen the pain and the
suffering of those unnecessary casualties of car crashes.
We
can change that. I pledge my
remaining time as your Secretary to helping you fight this fight.
I
am asking for your commitment - a promise from you to spend your time, and your
energy, in this fight.
It
will not be easy. We will not be
given every tool there is for this fight - we may not even be given the best
tools. But that should not stop us
- it cannot stop us - because too much is at stake.
I
started out these remarks saying that this was an all-hands meeting in the
maritime tradition. Let me finish
my remarks to you by changing that description.
This
is not an all-hands meeting, it is a call to general quarters.
"All
hands - man your battle stations."
God
bless each and every of you as we begin this fight in earnest.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
I know with your commitment and your energy, you will not let this great
nation down.
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