TxDOT Hosts National Lifesavers Conference in Austin, April 9-11

Since the early 1980s, the Lifesavers conference has been the United States’ premier national highway safety meeting dedicated to reducing the tragic toll of deaths and injuries on our nation’s roadways. This year, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) will host the nearly 1,900 participants who will gather in Austin in early April to share common-sense solutions to today’s critical highway safety problems.

Texas Bicycle Coalition will have a presence at this important national conference. The Coalition will host a booth at the conference expo, and Executive Director Robin Stallings has been invited to participate on a panel for a conference workshop on Safe Routes to School.

The conference addresses a wide range of safety topics, from child passenger safety and occupant protection to roadway and vehicle safety and technology. It also offers the latest information on advances in highway safety, highlights successful programs and draws attention to emerging safety issues.

Conference attendees come from the public and private sectors and represent many career fields, including:

• Child passenger safety professionals
• State and local law enforcement
• Community traffic safety programs
• State and local emergency medical services, and public health
• Injury prevention programs
• Federal and state highway safety agencies
• Prosecutors and judges involved in traffic safety issues
• The automotive and insurance industries
• Advocacy and research

Lifesavers participants meet with their highway safety peers in a forum where they can share program successes, learn from each other and develop alliances with people from all over the country.

Included in this year’s conference program are two workshops that focus on bicycle safety: one on bicycle safety for adult audiences and the other, co-presented by Texas Bicycle Coalition Executive Director, Robin Stallings, on Safe Routes to School: Where to Start! A brief description of each of these workshops is listed below. For more information about the Lifesavers Conference, visit www.lifesaversconference.org.

Bicycle Safety for Adult Audiences – Sunday, 10:40 am to 12:15 pm
The current average age of a bicyclist killed in traffic crashes is 38.7 years old, an increase compared to 27.8 in 1993. Young kids are a captured audience for bicycle safety education in the school classroom, but how and with what means can we reach adults? Come see a newly released bicycle safety video for adults, learn of activities underway through bicycle dealerships to reach adult bicyclists, as well as an innovative approach for reaching Hispanics adults.

Safe Routes to School (SR2S) – Where to Start? – Monday, 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm
Parent and neighborhood groups, school and local officials, law enforcement officers and traffic engineers are working together to make streets safer for pedestrians and bicyclists along routes used for travel to school. SAFETEA-LU now requires states to sponsor Safe Routes to School Programs. Come learn about SAFETEA-LU requirements and the many resources and programmatic approaches now available to assist states in program development and implementation.