News --> February 12, 2008

National Transportation Week (NTW) | May 14, 2008
Mock accident drives effort to teach
safe driving values

DOWNLOAD NTW 2008 BROCHURE

2008 5th Grade National Transportation Week Poster Contest Winners:

• National 1st Place Winner: Sean Connor, (Poster )
  Whittaker Elementary in Orangeburg, SC

• Michigan 1st Place Winner: Justin O'Connell, (Poster )
  Costello Elementary in Troy, MI

Dearborn Heights – Sadly, teens and cars are often a deadly combination. The reality is that thousands of families are impacted by a teen’s decision to steer and text-message, use a cell phone, fool around at the wheel or drink and operate a car. Nearly 3,500 young drivers (ages15-20) died in 2006, according to the National Transportation Safety Administration.

To hopefully help reduce those numbers, Wayne County will team with Liberty Mutual Insurance to stage a 45-minute, mock car accident scene at noon on May 14 at Hines Park (Warrendale site).  The crash will include the stark sights and sounds and the deadly serious consequences to educate teens and drive the message like no classroom possibly could.

The public/private partnership will stage the event for teens attending the all-day National Transportation Week/Wayne County (Transportation) Education Expo at Hines Park (Warrendale site). Detroit is acknowledged nationally as the unofficial host city for the event due to its automotive heritage.

The mock accident will feature student actors in “crashed” cars, police, fire/emergency crews, the Jaws of Life and a Dearborn Heights emergency worker to narrate as events unfold. A Dearborn Heights district judge will also sign a warrant to draw blood from a teen actor charged with drunken driving. The audience will be middle-schoolers and young drivers attending the all-day Expo. Liberty Mutual sponsors mock accidents and advocates other educational tools nationwide to reduce the number of teen fatalities. The insurance firm is providing the vehicles and will have an exhibit at the Expo.

More than 1,200 metro area students will attend the event, along with transportation industry exhibitors and related activities. The Wayne County Education Expo runs from 9 a.m. through 2 p.m. Students from Wayne and Oakland counties will participate.

Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano said the reality approach works best. “If the mock accident saves just one life, it’ll be worth every minute” put into the event, he said.

The Warrendale park is located in Dearborn Heights, near the Warren/Outer Drive intersection. Experts, emergency authorities and participants will be available for interviews.

Participating schools:

1. Golightly CTC
2. Clippert
3. Flagship Charter Academy
4. Pierre Toussaint Academy
5. St. Anselm
6. Advanced Technology Academy
7. Webster Elementary
8. Thirkell Elementary
9. Garden City High School
10. Breithaupt Career/Tech Center
11. Center of Literacy & Creativity
12. Detroit City High
13. Dr. Charles Drew Academy
14. St. Damian
15. Cooke Elementary
16. William D. Ford Career Tech. Ctr.
17. Star International Academy
18. Peter Vetal Ele/Middle

    Total 1,276

Did you know?

- Nicolaus August Otto invented the gas motor engine in 1876

- Gottlieb Daimler in 1885 invented a gas engine that allowed for a revolution in car design

- Karl Benz designed and in 1885 built the world's first practical automobile to be powered by an internal-combustion engine

- America's first gasoline-powered automobile was the 1891 Lambert invented by John W. Lambert

- The Duryea brothers founded America's first company to manufacture and sell gasoline-powered vehicles

- In September 1783 Pilatre De Rozier, a scientist, launched the first hot-air balloon (the Aerostat Reveillon). The passengers were a sheep, a duck and a rooster, staying aloft for 15 minutes. The first manned attempt came about 2 months later, with a balloon made by two French brothers, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier

- Henry Ford improved the assembly line for automobile manufacturing (Model-T), invented a transmission mechanism, and popularized the gas-powered automobile. He also built his first engine from spare parts and tubing

- William "Billy" Durant founded General Motors and created the system of multi-brand holding companies with different lines of cars. He was first successful assembling carriages in Flint with his partner Josiah Dallas Dort. Mr. Dort was born in Inkster, Mich.

- Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel-fueled internal combustion engine

- Orville and Wilbur Wright are credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on Dec. 17, 1903

-  The first successful steam railway in the US was the South Carolina Railroad whose inaugural train ran in December 1830 hauled by the Best Friend of Charleston. Many of the earliest locomotives for American railroads were imported from England, including the Stourbridge Lion and the John Bull, but a domestic locomotive manufacturing industry was quickly established, with locomotives like the DeWitt Clinton being built in the 1830s

- The first traffic lights were installed in 1868 outside the British Houses of Parliament in London, by the railway engineer J. P. Knight. They resembled railway signals of the time, with semaphore arms and red and green gas lamps for night use

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