It was just under a year ago that my team of co-employees and I were gathered for the annual safety awareness meeting. We were all pretty excited because it meant we’d have at least an hour away from our desks.
We filed into the training room, picking up safety packets that sat on a table at the entry before taking our seats. Just as we had all gotten comfortable, the moderator called us to stand again. She then led us through three stretches. “Safety First” is one of the most important motto’s around the entire company. Working in a department where we sit down all day at the computer, ergonomics and stretching is something we hear about everyday, all day long.
After our stretch, we sat through the usual introduction to the meeting – a PowerPoint outline of the meeting’s objectives. This alone took nearly ten minutes. I smiled. I knew this was going to be a nice, long gathering. Time away from the phones was exactly what I needed.
The annual safety meetings usually include going through a list of all issues that were of concern in the preceding year. Then we review the new year’s goals. Eventually we go over safety procedures like what to do in an earthquake or how to respond to a “suspicious” package or bomb threat. For the most part, it is information that we’ve heard before.
To end the training, a hand-out went around the room. This was a list of all the newest California laws that had gone into affect – some we may need to know as they might be relevant to our jobs. For example, those who drive for company business or transfer to a department in which they would be driving a company vehicle would need to know that it was now a requirement to have headlights turned on when driving in any kind of precipitation, no matter how light the drizzle.
To keep us alert, our trainer asked us to take turns reading each paragraph. There was nothing too exciting until we arrived at one against “trunking”.
AB 1850 makes it unlawful for a person to knowingly drive a motor vehicle while another person is riding in the trunk; riding in the trunk is also illegal. The driver receives a fine and one point on his or her driving record; the person riding in the trunk receives a fine.
Many of us were surprised to learn that this was an issue of enough concern to grant a law. Many eyebrows were raised, shoulders were shrugged. We all began to chatter about sneaking friends into the drive-ins in order to reduce the cost of entry. Then, Kylie – a mother of two teenagers began to speak. She let us know what the legislation was really about.
The law is a response to some teen drivers’ attempts to evade the passenger restriction in California’s graduated driver licensing law by hiding teens in the trunk. State law prohibits young drivers from driving with anyone under age 20 unless they are also accompanied by a licensed adult of age 25 or older. Since 2000, there have been 153 collisions involving trunking, resulting in nine deaths and 140 injuries.
This has been such a growing cause of death that fire departments and other emergency response personnel have included a new step in their routines when arriving at a traffic accident. As soon as possible, they check the trunks of cars, particularly those driven by teenagers, for victims who may be injured or deceased.
Just the other day, a young girl in our area died like this. Her name was Jessica Stephens; she was only 16 years old.
I wrote about this with the hopes that my fellow parents would be prompted to talk to their teenagers about how dangerous trunking is. We as parents need to be more involved, and ensure that our children are as safe as possible. Youngsters will always find ways to bend the rules, but maybe with information, we can encourage them to make better choices.
Looking back on that meeting, reading about the new law doesn’t seem so silly anymore.
The Other Day 