This Fall semester, The University’s Public Safety Information and Education Department changed their approach to the Travel With Care program for student safety education.
Susan McCallister, assistant director of Public Safety and member of the TWC planning committee since the program’s beginning in 2010, said the program was changing the time frame of their outreach efforts.
“The campaign has been going since 2010,” McCallister said. “It has usually had one focused week of outreach in the spring.”
Tackling the issue earlier on in the school year will be more beneficial to students, McCallister said.
“We feel that this year’s campaign is more successful because we are targeting students with the message early in the academic year,” McCallister said. “We will continue to share information throughout the rest of the academic year.”
McCallister said that the committee’s efforts to advance its social media presence has also helped it achieve greater success this semester.
“This year, a lot of our campaign has been focused on spreading awareness through social media,” McCallister said. “We also had a focused outreach effort on various concourses on campus in October, where we gave out information and encouraged people to post a photo on social media using our Travel with Care photo booth.”
McCallister said the week was a success having reached many with their message.
“We reached several thousand people with information that week,” McCallister said.
McCallister said the program has benefited from cooperation with many different student organizations over the years.
“There are numerous groups involved, including the City of Auburn, Auburn Police Division, AU Campus Safety & Security, AU Communications & Marketing, Tiger Transit, Greek Life, Healthy Tigers and SGA,” McCallister said.
McCallister said the program has made a point to cover many different fields of public safety information, but that its main focus this year was on recognizing and obeying traffic signals.
“Our goal is to promote safety, regardless of how you travel from place to place on a daily basis,” McCallister said. “We provide education on pedestrian, cyclist, driver, and transit rider safety.”
McCallister said the majority of automobile accidents in Alabama two years ago was a failure to acknowledge road signs.
“Failure to yield and failure to heed signs and signals were the number one cause of crashes in Alabama in 2014, attributable to about 25,000 crashes, so the campaign has been focused on failure to yield this year,” McCallister.
McCallister said the program was concerned with a series of incidents that occurred in Auburn over a two-month stretch this semester.
“I looked back at incidents from Sept. 1 through Oct. 31 on campus and found that there were 5 pedestrian/vehicle incidents and 3 bicycle/vehicle incidents,” McCallister said. “Over half involved injuries, but they were not serious.”
McCallister said both pedestrians and cars need to be checking for each other.
“All pedestrians were in crosswalks, and 4 of the pedestrian incidents occurred when vehicles were turning left or right when the pedestrian had a crossing signal,” McCallister said. “Bicycles are required to act as a vehicle and drive on the road or in a bike lane or shared use path.”
Bikes are not to be ridden on sidewalks, and should not be ridden across crosswalks, McCallister said.
“Bike helmets are important for cyclists and skateboarders, as we also had two bike accidents and one skateboarding accident (not involving vehicles) that resulted in the rider striking their head and requiring medical treatment,” McCallister said.
McCallister said there were no specific plans for future changes in the TWC program just yet, but they would continue to provide services with a similar approach.
“We don’t have specific plans for future semesters, but will continue to involve students in the planning process to get new ideas and find other ways to reach our campus community,” McCallister said.
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