Freeport ? The 2011 Northeast Transportation Safety Conference was held Nov. 8th and 9th at the Hilton Garden Inn in Freeport hosted by the Maine Transportation Safety Coalition. In attendance were transportation safety specialists from the Northeast discussing the 4 ?E?s? of safety- Enforcement, Education, Emergency services and Engineering. MaineDOT Commissioner David Bernhardt delivered welcoming remarks along with Brian Lawrence from the Federal Highway Administration, Colonel Robert Williams, Chief of the Maine State Police and Senator Bill Diamond of Windham.
Topics of discussion included, but were not limited to, distracted and impaired driving, incident management, median cable barriers on the interstate, teen driving, developing safety programs and roadside design.
Maine?s second Strategic Highway Safety Plan was released in January, showing year to year results covering important items such as safety belt usage, winter crashes, intersection crashes and bicycle and pedestrian incidents, among others. ?For the Strategic Highway Safety Plan to work, we cannot stick it in a drawer somewhere, it must be front and center,? said Commissioner Bernhardt. ?Our latest plan has not had the fanfare that the first one had, but it is getting a much wider distribution and its efforts are being translated into the latest Department wide Strategic Plan, which will be seen by all.?
The conference reinforced MaineDOT?s mission of providing a safe, efficient and reliable transportation system that supports economic opportunity and quality of life throughout the State of Maine.
(Photo: MaineDOT Commissioner David Bernhardt. Photo courtesy MaineDOT)