When some people hear that I work on truck safety issues they ask me why.  I have several reasons, most of which you’re heard here before.

I talk to people, write about issues, call, visit and email my government representatives, attend meetings and travel because all of that gives me something to do with my anger and my grief.  Even after six years the pain is just below the surface and still surprises me by its intensity.

I also do it to honor my Dad who was always there for all of us.  I do it because unlike government he wouldn’t spend years studying and talking about safety, he’d just fix stuff.  One of the last things he did the week before he was killed by a tired trucker that December was to add handrails to unsafe places in his church.  Because he saw a safety hazard and he knew he could fix it.  So he did.

Just last night, on my way to bed I heard on the nightly news about a pregnant couple, driving to visit his parents with her parents in the car, who stopped on the freeway this past snowy Saturday afternoon because there was an accident up ahead.  A semi hit them from behind.  The pregnant mother is dead, the baby born without a heartbeat is on life support.  Another family is spun deeply into mourning.

And that’s why I do it.