I’m back from Washington DC where I attended the Sorrow to Strength conference hosted by the Truck Safety Coalition.  The objective of the Coalition is to support the enforcement and strengthening of safety laws surrounding large trucks.  I do this because my Dad was killed by a tired trucker.  His death was sensless and what’s worse, more people are dying at the hands of tired truckers every day. Fourteen will die today.  In fact, more than 5200 people have died in each of the years since Dad’s 2004 death.  Over 10,000 people have died in similar crashes since we got that life changing call December 23, 2004.  The figures were similar each year prior to his death as well.  The trucking industry seems to think this is a cost of doing business.  I am beginning to believe it’s outright irresponsibility, valuing profit over safety.  Their motivation is profit.  My motiviation is safety.  Do we need to kill 5200 people a year in order to get cheaper goods on our store shelves?  Would we be willing to pay a few cents more for items to avoid the deaths of so many people?  I think everyone would agree that saving 10 cents on our next microwave is not worth the death of a single stranger.  Certainly not worth the death of people we know and love.

So the sorrow in the title of our conference revolves around remembering the people we loved who are lost.  We had a wonderful grief therapist speak.  We held a remberence ceremoney where we sat in a candlelit room and spoke about what we missed about our loved ones.  We cried.  We hugged.  We cried some more.  We got angry.   

We took that anger and channeled it into something strong, the strength of our conference, when we met with Senators and Representatives’ staff people on Monday, telling our stories and asking for help on multiple truck safety issues.  This year I didn’t feel the energy of capital hill, I didn’t feel the hope and promise I felt last year.  Maybe because I was talking to some of the same people about the same issues as last year.  Maybe I am becoming more realistic about change.  Maybe my feet just hurt and distracted me.  Regardless I am not going to let the feeling of hopelessness overtake me.  The mission remains the same;  get tired truckers off the road, enforce the laws that are already on the books, and change some laws to make the movement of goods in this country a safer industry.

I know that the trucking industry has a lot of money and a lot of influence on Capital Hill.  I know I’m just one voice, one face.  But my face had tears streaking down it, and my voice trembled in anger and pain when I spoke.  My eyes locked on Capital Hill staff’s eyes and dared them to ignore my pleas.  I won’t go away.  I’ll be back.  Again and again I’ll force them to listen to my heartbreaking story and the stories of all the families that I was with this weekend.  If staffers want to stop the pain of having to listen to horrible stories then they need to stop the pain the trucking industry is imposing on helpless people who just got in the way of commerce.