Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Stein.
Safe Roads Alliance was founded 11 years ago in partnership with InControl Family Foundation, which offers an Advanced Driver Training course. The aim was to provide a discount to as many teenagers (and their parents) as possible, so they could get this invaluable hands-on training which teaches you how to avoid getting in a car crash.
Around 2010 the president of Safe Roads Alliance and several other key people worked tirelessly to design and publish The Parent’s Supervised Driving Program, a guidebook given to teens when they got their learner’s permit. The book is designed for parents and it guides them through all the important steps a parent needs in order to help supervise and teach their teen how to drive.
Currently, in addition to publishing and distributing The Parent’s Supervised Driving Program in 22 states across the US, we are also trying to get the Hands-Free law passed in Massachusetts, as distracted driving has become an epidemic in our country. We are also part of the Vision Zero Coalition, a group of road safety advocates based in the Boston area who are working with Boston’s Vision Zero Task Force to help implement changes on our roads which will save lives.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I took over in February 2016 and I won’t lie – there has been a steep learning curve in terms of running a non-profit. Fundraising could take up 40 hours a week alone, so it’s been put on the back burner for now because I’ve put other priorities first.
We are a very small organization, so it’s been important to network. And there are many wonderful people and organizations who care about road safety, so it’s been a privilege to work together and know we have a large support system of people who get things done!
Safe Roads Alliance – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Our mission is to educate the public about driving safety. If we were all better, safer drivers, then there would be substantially less injuries and fatalities on the roads. We call them crashes, not accidents, because over 93% of all crashes are due to human error – usually risky behavior that we know can cause a crash: speeding, aggressive driving, drunk or drugged driving, distracted driving, and not wearing a seatbelt.
We publish The Parent’s Supervised Driving Program and in MA, it is mailed to the home of every teen who gets his/her learner’s permit. We just launched the online version of the guide, which can be viewed here: http://www.eregulations.com/driving/massachusetts/
Because this is a really crucial time in a teen’s life, research has shown that the more a parent is involved in this step of learning to drive, the lower the risk of the teen crashing. And since motor vehicle crashes are the #1 killer of teens and young adults, you can see how necessary this is.
Distracted Driving is a large focus of our organization right now because I have been personally impacted by a tragedy caused by a driver who was programming her GPS while driving. This driver killed my dad in 2011, just before my daughter was born, so she never got to meet her Grandpa. Since then, as smart phones have become ubiquitous, distracted driving is a really big problem on our roads. So that is why Safe Roads Alliance has been pushing to pass the Hands-Free bill at the State House, and we hope that this will be the year that it finally passes. It won’t be the solution to ending distracted driving, but it will definitely help to get more drivers to focus on the road, instead of their phones.
I am proud to be working with other safety advocates, people who have also been impacted by such preventable tragedies. It is very hard for them to tell their stories, but they do it in hopes of preventing other parents the pain of losing a child.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Bringing my 4-year-old daughter to the State House 2 years ago to watch the Senate vote in favor of the Hands-Free bill was definitely a moment I won’t forget. I am also proud to be raising a child who is acutely aware of safety on the roads. She is the first to tell someone to put on their seatbelt or put the phone away. This is why I am hoping our next big project will be to develop a curriculum that we can bring into elementary schools. If we raise a generation of children who are taught about attentive driving and road safety, then these messages will likely stick through their adolescence and young adulthood.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://saferoadsalliance.org/
- Phone: 617-830-2690
- Email: info@saferoadsalliance.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SafeRoadsAlliance/
- Twitter: @Safe_Roads
Image Credit:
Fisher College
Boston Cyclist Union
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