I am delighted to receive your reply!
Thank you for choosing to give Pedestrian & Motorist Safety
& my families devastating loss your attention.
I also, always, appreciate our Alaska Mustang family, Chugiak High School!
At this time, what is most helpful will be to share this article.
Here is the Link; http://lbindy.com/2011/09/30/hit-tragedy-strides-purpose/
If you can repost this link into a family news letter, a work group email, a company
Web site, sharing our story and our goal; to decrease Pedestrian
Deaths & Injuries that would be great. Our goal at Safer Passages
Is to decrease the number of deaths with Education, Awareness & Advocacy.
I am available to speak on this matter & on healing during the greif cycle which is part of the death of our Loved ones.
Thank you Tina!
Safer Passages & The Look Up Campaign
Pamela

I live in Portland, OR, and I hope I can do something to raise awareness in the Portland, OR area, as I am sure all of Chugiak Alums are willing to do.

A tragedy for your entire family, but a blessing to the world of your efforts to bring a positive message from such a tragic loss.

Hugs,
Tina

Thank you very much for your letter and for taking the times to write.

Yes! You are exactly right about the constancy of Pedestrians & Motorists whom are Looking down or into their cell phones while driving or walking. That point is exactly why Safer Passages has started The Look Up Campaign!
Actually, just a few hours ago, I saved myself from being hit on PCH simply by being certain to Look Up & Find the Eyes of the Motorists coming my way. While I was crossing the first lane and seeing the eyes of the motorist in that first lane I then looked to the second lane to see the driver’s eyes before stepping into her path.
She appeared to be a petite woman in her late 20′s. She was responsible for the large black Escalade she was driving. However, she seemed to think she could do that well while she was looking into her cell phone texting. I was in the street, in the crosswalk, with a vehicle and lane behind me and I was searching for her to see my eyes before I would step further. She kept driving, she kept texting & she drove right up beside me! I was looking right into her passenger window that was down. She was then in the crosswalk with me & I was standing there in the street with all cars stopped on PCH, Natraj Indian food in front of me, Penguin Cafe behind me and to my left & she glanced up seeing only straight ahead, immediately dropping her gaze back down into her phone, steering with her left hand, right hand holding that cell phone & never even saw me in the street, in the crosswalk, beside her car seeing right in to her passenger window!
Had I not waited to see the eyes of the driver in the second oncoming lane then the day after my
Safer Passages article was so well written by Jennifer & shot by Mitch, Andrea & the LB Independent would have been publishing the story of me being hit by a woman texting.
We have such a responsibility when we get behind the wheel of a car. A responsibility to the children & families that live in the towns we are driving in. Can you imagine how awful that poor woman would have felt to hit me & after hitting me she would have learned of my husbands death & of our five children. She would have suffered immensely knowing that if she had only seen the rode as a place to drive a car and not to text on a cell phone she could have saved a precious human life & prevented my children from further injury & heartache. Whatever she was texting certainly had to be something that could have waited or if not she could have handled it safely by pulling off the road and then texting verses how close she came to hitting me.
My choice to Look Up & Find the Eyes prevented her carelessness from causing my children more suffering.

The Look Up! Campaign will work and it will save thousands of lives & prevent needless suffering and life altering injuries if each one of us, as Pedestrians and as Motorists, take responsibility to make it important to practice the simple action of Looking Up to see the eyes of the Motorists driving towards us or to look for the eyes of the Pedestrians trying to cross the street that we as Motorists have the privilege and responsibility of driving on.

I am so thankful you took time to write & that I was here to respond.
I am also thankful for all of you that read this story in our town and have stopped me to say thank you, to share your streets you want fixed and to say you are sorry for my family’s loss & happy that I have started Safer Passages.

Again, thank you all as it will take all of us, as Pedestrians & Motorists, practicing Look Up! to make a difference & to save lives & stop senseless, preventable injuries.

Pamela Burrus
Look Up!
http://www.saferpassages.org
Safer Passages cause on Facebook