MINOT — An effort is being made to bring fatalities in car accidents to zero, as heard at Tuesday’s meeting of the county commission.
Vision Zero provides educational outreach programs to keep people safe. One program it provides is Vision Zero Schools, where it identifies students who want to be Vision Zero advocates. Vision Zero identified six student leaders at Des Lacs-Burlington High School.
Kyle Patterson, regional coordinator of Vision Zero, invited commissioners to attend the Des Lacs-Burlington Vision Zero kickoff on January 4, 10 a.m.
“What the kickoff will entail, is just recognizing these students, that they’re taking the next step to be leaders in their school to really focus on the fatalities and the choices that they make for their fellow peers,” said Patterson.
Patterson said the six student leaders chose to focus on speeding, with 25 of the 100 fatalities being speeding-related, and 17 of those being from the ages of 14-20.
“The preliminary data based on December 10 was the last time we got a status report update,” said Patterson. “We’ve had 98 crashes in the state of North Dakota, and 100 fatalities. Last year it was at 101. We have a lot of work to do, of course, to get to vision zero and zero fatalities, but we do a lot of educational outreach.”