County joins U.N.’s campaign for road safety

Two Nassau County Police officers revved up the motor on a device not much larger than a lawnmower engine. As the machine roared last Wednesday afternoon, the officers used its cutters to slowly peel off the driver’s side door of a badly damaged minivan. No one was inside the van, but students at Holy Trinity High School in Hicksville watched quietly and anxiously as the “Jaws of Life” crushed the car’s metal.

The officers moved quickly and confidently, and in less than three minutes, the door was off its hinges and on the ground. The students clapped, but Richard Lester, a member of the county’s emergency services unit, asked if the demonstration had been fast enough. In a serious crash, every second counts, he noted.

“Car crashes in general scare me,” said senior Eileen McGillicuddy, president of Holy Trinity’s Students Against Destructive Decisions club. She said she hoped the demonstration would be enough to make her peers think twice before getting in a car and driving with any form of distraction, like texting.

The demonstration was one part of a daylong event at Holy Trinity known as Grim Reaper Day, which is intended to remind students that the road can be a very dangerous place if they’re not careful. Wendy Tepfer, executive director of the Bellmore-Merrick Community Parent Center, attended to help the school mark the day while also kicking off a road safety campaign sponsored by Nassau County in collaboration with the United Nations’ Decade of Action campaign.

Five thousand teenagers die in car crashes every year in the U.S.; that equates to 14 teens dying every day. On top of that, 300,000 teens are injured in motor vehicle accidents every year. Yet, teenagers are not the only ones affected by fatal car accidents —30,797 Americans lost their lives to car crashes in 2009.

Communities around the world are hoping to bring those numbers down dramatically, including Nassau County. That is why Police Commissioner Tom Krumpter joined with students at Holy Trinity, a Catholic high school serving more than 1,400 students from Nassau and Suffolk counties, including many from the South Shore.