Fire danger: Moderate
Editors note: The following is part of a series on traffic safety prompted by employees' concerns on the hazards of driving to work.
Traffic safety facts
Young drivers: Just the stats
Car crashes are the number one killer of young people between the ages of 15 to 20.
There were 182.7 million licensed drivers in the United States in 1997 (1998 and later data were not available). Young drivers, between 15 and 20 years old, accounted for 6.9 percent or 12.6 million of these drivers. Sixteen percent of all drivers involved in police-reported crashes were young drivers.
In 1998, 7,975 15- to 20-year-old drivers were involved in fatal car accidents.
During that same year, 14 percent of all the drivers involved in fatal crashes were young drivers between 15 to 20 years old. Fourteen percent had an invalid driver's license.
More than one third of the young drivers involved in fatal crashes who had an invalid driver's license at the time of the crash, also had a previous license suspension or revocation. For the same group, 28 percent of this group of drivers who were killed in car accidents had been drinking.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for young people in this age group. In 1998, 3,427 young people were killed and an additional 348,000 were injured in motor vehicle accidents.
When driver fatality rates are calculated on the basis of estimated annual travel, the highest rates are found among the youngest and the oldest drivers. Compared with the fatality rate for drivers 25 through 69 years old, the rate for teen drivers is about four times higher.
The severity of a crash increases with alcohol involvement. In 1998, 21 percent of those young people involved in fatal crashes had been drinking. Twenty-one percent of the young people who were killed in car crashes were intoxicated.
Information on young drivers is available from the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, NRD-31, 400 Seventh Street S.W., Washington, D.C. 20590. General information on highway traffic safety can be accessed online at http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa.
--Kathy DeLucas
Vehicle traffic from NM 4 diverted to
'Truck Route' today
Motorists who use NM 4 to travel down the hill from White Rock and Los Alamos will be detoured today as a repaving project on NM 502 continues.
The scheduled detour will be in place from about 8 a.m. through 3:30 p.m., said Miguel Gabaldon of the state Highway and Transportation Department's District 5 office in Santa Fe.
Laboratory employees shouldn't be affected, but White Rock residents especially who use NM 4 will be detoured west onto East Jemez Road (the truck route), north on Diamond Drive, east on Trinity Drive to NM 502, he said.
A ramp that connects NM 4 with eastbound NM 502 will be closed to all traffic for repaving and one lane of eastbound NM 502 also will be closed, Gabaldon explained. Signs, message boards and other traffic control devices will be in place alerting motorists to the planned work.
Brasier Asphalt of Montrose, Colo., is repaving several miles of roadway from just west of Eastgate Road to NM 502 near the Phillips 66 service station, said Bill Diven of Proof Positive, an Albuquerque public relations company on contract to the state road agency.
The contractor plans to work from about 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and no work is scheduled to take place during peak morning and afternoon hours, said Diven. Weather permitting, the work should be finished by Sept. 15.
During construction, there will be intermittent lane closures and the posted speed limit through the construction area is 40 miles per hour. Flagpersons will direct vehicle traffic through the work area when necessary, Diven added.
The Laboratory allows managers to use flex-time scheduling. Employees and subcontract personnel interested in joining a car or van pool can call 988-7433 or 1-888-866-6438, or go to the Laboratory's "Commuter's Corner" Web page at http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/pa/News/rideshare.html.
--Steve Sandoval
Three 'Quality Heroes' recognized for
efforts before, during and after the Cerro Grande Fire
Three Laboratory employees were recently recognized as "Quality Heroes" by the Quality New Mexico organization. The Oxford Dictionary defines quality as "a degree of excellence."
"As part of the seventh anniversary celebration for Quality New Mexico we felt that we should honor some of the Quality Heroes of the Cerro Grande Fire," said Bill Wadt, Quality Improvements Office director and a member of the Quality New Mexico board of directors. "Quality New Mexico asked the news directors of the three major television stations and the chairman of the board for Los Alamos National Bank to identify Quality Heroes from the Cerro Grande Fire. All those honored represent their colleagues since there was no way we could possibly honor everyone who deserved it."
Deputy Laboratory Director for Operations Dick Burick singled out Ed Nettles, deputy group leader for Emergency Management and Response (S-8), Gene Darling of S-8 and Diana Webb Ecology (ESH-20) group leader to represent the Quality Heroes from the Lab. "Quality New Mexico wanted to recognize the great contributions of the Laboratory," Wadt said.
Webb, Darling and Nettles accepted their award at the seventh anniversary luncheon of Quality New Mexico in Santa Fe. U.S. Rep. Tom Udall and many other dignitaries also attended the luncheon. The trio received a certificate signed by Gov. Gary Johnson and all the members of the congressional delegation, a pin and a tote bag in recognition of their efforts before, during and after the Cerro Grande Fire.
Certificates were awarded to all the groups that came to the aid of Los Alamos. They included, the Los Alamos Police Department; the Los Alamos Fire Department; the state fire marshal's office; the 53 other fire departments that sent help; the Los Alamos county staff; the Los Alamos radio station KRSN; the Los Alamos county councilors and the many volunteers who helped feed the fire fighters and other emergency personnel.
Nettles, Darling and Webb were recognized for their roles in establishing the Interagency Wildfire Management Team shortly after the Dome Fire in 1996. The IWMT is an organization that includes the Lab, the Department of Energy, the Park and Forest services and Los Alamos county emergency services.
"The IWMT, a team established under the supervision of former Lab Deputy Director Jim Jackson, was designed to plan, implement and monitor activities to mitigate the threat of wildfires," said Nettles.
"Since 1996, the IWMT has been meeting every two weeks to discuss wildfire issues," Webb said. "The IWMT spent considerable time predicting, modeling and simulating a fire like the Cerro Grande Fire. Probably our most effective action was the proactive measures to create a fuel break along NM 501 west of the Lab. Our work there stopped the Cerro Grande Fire and prevented the destruction of many Lab structures," she said.
Another contribution of the IWMT was an established, trusted working relationship within the team at the time the Cerro Grande Fire hit. "The efforts of the IWMT were key in helping the disaster efforts run smoothly," said Wadt.
Quality Hero Awards are given by trained members of Quality New Mexico called champions. "When a member sees someone that knocks their socks off and goes above and beyond the call of duty, the program is designed so that he or she can designate that person a Quality Hero," says Wadt.
Quality New Mexico is a nonprofit membership organization chartered by the governor to administer the State Quality Award Process, which is based on the Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award Criteria. The six honorary chairs include the governor and congressional delegates who help run the organization. "The primary goal of Quality New Mexico is to make New Mexico 'the Quality State' and promote excellent service and management," said Wadt. The Quality Hero's Program is one way to promote quality throughout the state.
"The program is designed so that a person can be named a Quality Hero on the spot and can be presented with a certificate and a pin," Wadt explained.
"Quality New Mexico is just one of 45 in the United States," said Wadt, "and it has been recognized as one of the best." A local quality community effort, the Los Alamos Quality Network, was established in the Los Alamos County area five years ago.
"During the Cerro Grande Fire, New Mexico really pulled together and demonstrated that it is 'the Quality State' in times of an emergency," said Wadt. "We need to build on that experience to achieve our aspiration of being "the Quality State every day of the year."
More information about Quality New Mexico can be found at http://www.qualitynewmexico.org/ online.
--Leah Gardner
DOE Pulse highlights DOE laboratories
The latest issue of DOE Pulse is available online. Pulse is an online newsletter about accomplishments at the Department of Energy's national laboratories. The highlights are short, written to be interesting and very understandable.
In addition to the highlights, each issue features two longer articles -- one about a researcher, the other about a multilab collaborative effort.
Some of the headlines in this issue are "Appliances get the true wash-day test" from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, "Heat pipes to help cool car" from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, "Successful results for treated-wood burning" from the National Energy Technology Laboratory and "Tags target Army inventory" from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Also in this issue, a feature on a three-time R&D 100 Award winner from Brookhaven National Laboratory.
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