Allison Hyde

COM 345

Assignment 6: Lobbying Speech

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Cedric Dickerson and I am the chair of the Boys and Girls Club of Wilmington. I have come to you, the members of the Wilmington Planning Board, tonight, to make a request on behalf of the club. Before I begin my appeal, I feel it is important for you to have some background information on the Boys and Girls Club. Our mission is to instill the practices of fair play, honesty and sportsmanship in local youth, through coaching members in education, nutrition, and athletics. We currently have 60 members, from the ages of six to 18. Since at least 15 of these members regularly walk to the facility, we feel it is necessary to improve the safety and effectiveness of our crosswalk – which is why I am here, seeking your assistance and approval. We need to install Street Smart signs by the crosswalk near our facility, crossing McRae Street on the north side of Nixon Street in downtown Wilmington.

I want to begin by sharing this picture of a Street Smart crosswalk sign with you. As you can see, they are bright, animated display signs that immediately forewarn drivers that there is an active crosswalk ahead. The sign includes flashing lights and an overhead reflector that makes it visible at night. A cross walk is not enough – drivers need to be well aware of the crosswalk for pedestrians to be safe. Now,look at this photo of our crosswalk. The approaching street of McRae is full of hills, meaning little visibility of the crosswalk for drivers.

I understand that the process of approving a crosswalk sign will entail extra work for the Planning Board. According to Division 3, Section 5-30 of Wilmington, North Carolina’s Code of Ordinances, there must be particular danger to pedestrians crossing the roadway in order for a crosswalk to be painted. There must be further proof that the crosswalk itself is not preserving the safety of pedestrians for additional measures to be taken. Tonight, I hope to present an argument that will help you realize the essentiality of these attention-grabbing crosswalk signs, particularly for those individuals using the Boys and Girls Club facility.

First, here are some statistics to consider. Every year, 5,000 people are killed and over 70,000 are injured in crosswalk accidents. Clearly, crosswalks alone are not enough to ensure pedestrian safety. The Street Smart sign organization has found that “nationwide, Street Smart crosswalk signs installed on dangerous crosswalks could prevent 7 deaths and over 96 injuries every day.” This means over 2,500 deaths and 35,000 injuries would be prevented annually. These fatalities and injuries occur because drivers are not prepared to stop at cross walks, due to lack of proper warning.

You’re probably wondering how these numbers apply to our organization. After all, we are fortunate enough to say there have been no member casualties when using the crosswalk on the north side of Nixon Street. However, we have had four members in the past two months who have had accidents while using the crosswalks. Three bicycling members and one walking member were all tapped by cars that were unable to stop completely before reaching the crosswalk. In each of the four situations, the drivers were not given enough notice of the crosswalk or the pedestrians to brake in time. Since the hilly landscape of the road and the early-evening darkness of winter months are unbending factors, we must find an aspect that we can alter to improve pedestrian safety. This improvable factor is driver awareness. With Street Smart signs on either side of the crosswalk, drivers can see the crosswalk from over a half-mile away. This would surely eliminate the danger that our walking and biking members face when they use the crosswalk.

You may wonder if there are alternate approaches to this problem. How about persuading members to abstain from using the crosswalk all together? We absolutely cannot do that, since the crosswalk is the only way to reach the center by foot. We also do not feel it would be appropriate to encourage everyone to drive to the club. After all, we support any efforts to be more environment-friendly and physically active. It would be hypocritical on our part to suggest that members have their parents drive them to the center, when they could be getting extra exercise and doing their part to reduce carbon emissions. As long as our members are not commuting alone or after dark, and live in close proximity, we would like to encourage them to continue walking and biking to the center. But how can we encourage them if their safety is threatened every time they use the crosswalk? We cannot. We need Street Smart signs.

Another reason that these signs are necessary is that they will benefit residents and employees in the surrounding area, in addition to our members. If more members are driven to the center, there will be more traffic on McRae and Nixon Streets. There is hardly adequate space in our parking lot for drivers to turn their cars around after dropping off children, particularly if there are children walking in the parking lot. We do not want the lack of room in the lot to cause drivers to turn around on Nixon Street, since it would mean more potential for more car collisions. If the safety of the crosswalk is improved, then more members who live nearby will be able to walk or bike to the center, reducing the number of drivers, and therefore, any of these dangers. We need Street Smart signs.

A final concern of yours is most likely cost. Although price is different based on distributor, the Street Smarts signs are affordable, especially compared with existing alternatives. The signs are solar powered, so there is no cost of wiring or energy bills. There is radio communication between the signs on either ends of the crosswalk, so there are also no digging costs. Finally, the signs use ultra-bright LEDs (light-emitting diode lights) which never burn out, so there is no light bulb replacement necessary. Installing these signs is a one-time expense, meaning no further payments or upkeep required.

I want to thank everyone for hearing tonight’s presentation. Our youth are inexpressibly important to us. We want them to continue being a part of the Boys and Girls Club, where they can immerse themselves in knowledge and skill-building activities that will serve them throughout the course of their lives. We want to continue seeing their smiling and enthusiastic faces coming through that doorway of our building, day after day, week after week, year after year. But before they can walk through that door, they have to make it across that crosswalk. Please help us secure the safety of our members. Help us secure the safety of our children. Help us secure the safety of our future. We need Street Smart signs for our cross walk, and we need them now.