As I begin this year, my sixth as the Chairman of the Safety Board, I wanted to highlight one issue that I felt after looking back on my period as Chairman that I can emphasize on behalf of the American people and that issue is child transportation safety. In the last decade over 15,000 children under the age of 10 have been killed on our highways. The loss of a child is truly the greatest tragedy that can befall a family. It was the former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop that said There are very few places that children can go that adults have not made dangerous for them. Our highways are the most dangerous place for our young people in the United States.
Car crashes are the leading risk faced by our nation s children.
It is every adult s responsibility to be sure that the children in their cars are being properly buckled up. That is the goal of Operation ABC Mobilization, that is why we are here this morning. This program goes to the heart of the number one problem in the United States of America. The fact that the number one killer of kids is highway deaths. Thank you Janet, The results of this survey I find extremely disturbing.