NEW YORK — While walking and driving around Staten Island you may notice large advertisements of brown-toned close-up faces. Their words are chillingly simple: "DIED to cash a check" or "DIED for the opening kick-off."
The advertisements are part of a new campaign called "Speeding, There's no Excuse," which was launched on Feb. 23 on Staten Island by Council Members Michael McMahon and James Oddo, and with the help of the non-profit organization Transportation Alternatives. It was initiated by Dr. Jeffrey Nicastro, Director of Trauma of the Staten Island University Hospital.
"Today we fight for the hearts and minds of Staten Island motorists to convince them to slow down," said Oddo.
It all started with a few physicians, nurses and other health care workers at the Staten Island University Hospital. They noticed that many of their trauma patients were pedestrians struck in reckless driving accidents. A few more talks led the trauma team to check the data available. They studied two years' worth of data and saw that injuries resulting from pedestrian struck accidents on Staten Island were 2-3 times more common then New York City's average and four times the national average.
The results were troubling for Dr. Nicastro and his colleagues so they decided to get a politician involved. Clinical coordinator Michael Temperino saw an article in which Councilman McMahon talked about aggressive driving on Staten Island. This led them to believe he was the representative they were looking for so they put together a PowerPoint presentation and presented it to Councilman McMahon. McMahon contacted Oddo and they contacted 'Transportation Alternatives' who were happy to oblige.
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"Here on Staten Island we have a serious traffic crisis, a crisis of life and death," said McMahon last Thursday.
McMahon said the traffic crisis needed to be confronted with the three E's: Engineering, Enforcement and Education, and that they were addressing the Education part.
Oddo said, "We have a combination of an addiction to automobiles that stands from the lack of mass transportation, an infrastructure that is inadequate and a growing incidence of ignorance, stupidity and selfishness—it really is a jungle on the streets of Staten Island."
Oddo said he contributed $10,000 towards this campaign while McMahon gave $15,000. The campaign will place the advertisements on bus shelters in high accident locations on Staten Island, about 80 all together, and in the ferry terminals and subways. Next, Oddo said they are working towards placing the advertisements on billboards and plan to reach out to Time Warner cable, to reach more people through television. You can also contact Transportation Alternatives to get bumper stickers.
A study of a similar 2002 campaign in England was proven to be effective, concluding that the drivers' behavior and public perception has changed.
"We are here to announce the beginning of the end of speeding on Staten Island," said Paul White, director of Transportation Alternatives, the non-profit group that encourages bicycling, walking and public transit as alternatives to automobile use.
Looking at one of the advertisements at a bus-shelter on Hyland Boulevard, Steven from South Beach said, "It's shocking, we should be careful."
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