Pioneer race car driver Denise McCluggage to speak about safe driving Tuesday at Laboratory

Contact: Steve Sandoval, steves@lanl.gov, (505) 665-9206 (01-091)

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Sept. 7, 2001 - Pioneer race car driver, sports writer and travel photographer Denise McCluggage will talk about "Driving Distractions and How to Avoid Them" at a safety colloquium at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11 at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The talk is in the Administration Building Main Auditorium at Technical Area 3 and is open to the public. The talk is being held during national "Drive Safely Work Week." The Drive Safely Work Week campaign Sept. 10-14 is sponsored by the Laboratory's Positive Health Directions Program of the Occupational Medicine Group and the Compensation and Benefits Group to help raise awareness and promote driving safety

"Judging by e-mails and guest editorials in local newspapers, safety on our roads is a hot topic," said Hillard Howard, the Laboratory's Integrated Safety Management program manager in the Environment, Safety and Health Division. "Driving safely is like working safely, it is a matter of personal accountability and responsibility.

"Denise's talk on Tuesday will take us beyond the authority that a key and a license gives us to being more accountable and responsible to ourselves and to each other," said Howard.

"If other drivers never cause you to grit your teeth or pound your steering wheel, then this talk about driving safety may not be for you," said McCluggage. "On the other hand, if your safety and that of your family is important to you, we need to talk.

"We understand the complications involved in being a good driver," said McCluggage. "But in actuality it's more complicated than flying an airplane. To be safe on the road, we first must give our driving skills some status. It's more important than golf or a tennis match. Chances are pretty slim that a golf swing will kill you," she added.

McCluggage was involved at the inception of Competion Press (now AutoWeek) for which she is a columnist and senior-contributing editor. She has a syndicated newspaper column and edits an Internet car magazine, www.roadrunning.com.

"We have to know how to pay attention when we're behind the wheel of a car," she said. "But to do that we have to understand just what concentration is and what it isn't," she said. "That's the message I want to convey."

McCluggage is the recipient of Ken W. Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism, the Dean Bachelor Life Time Achievement Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Media Association. She is the first journalist to be admitted to the Automotive Hall of Fame in Novi, Mich., and has written several books. She also is a frequent speaker on driver and traffic safety.

For more information, contact Fran Talley of Los Alamos' Public Affairs Office at 667-5225.

Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Additional news releases from the Environment, Safety and Health (ESH) Division