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Every year in Minnesota, alcohol-related crashes cause more than 140 deaths and nearly 300
serious, life-altering injuries. In the last decade, these preventable crashes
have taken the lives of 2,000 people. One of those victims was Deputy Jon Niemann
from Scott County. He was off-duty when he was killed by a drunk driver. Jon was dropping
off his son, Nick, when the impaired driver crossed the median. His wife, Lori Niemann
Pederson tells the story of that night and how it has affected her family.
“Jon was in the Marine Corps when he was younger; he was also on the volunteer Fire
Department for Prior Lake; he was a Scott County Deputy and he was also on their SWAT
Team. Jon was driving home, he had just dropped of Nicholas. He was driving in his truck and
going the opposite way on the freeway was a drunk driver and he lost control of his
car, went through the center divider and hit Jon head on. He – I don’t even know if
he saw it coming, but he died instantly. My youngest son Nicholas, who was eleven at
the time – just, he’s eighteen and just graduated from high school and is having a
difficult time with the loss of his dad that it seems as though when big events happen
in his life that that’s when he grieves his death the most. And graduating from high
school and trying to decided what to do with his life and not having his dad around has
been really *** him. He’s doing well but it seems to – he’s going through a
real grieving period right now. And that’s what’s hard. You know I can set my pain
aside and deal with it but when I see my boys hurting; most especially Nick, that’s what
get to me.” The young man who killed Officer Niemann was
sentenced to 8 months. The same year Officer Jon Niemann died, Minnesota’s
core traffic safety initiative, Toward Zero Deaths, began its mission to eliminate deaths
and serious injuries from our roads. And significant progress has been made as a result:
Here are some of the ways that TZD programs have helped to drive Minnesota toward zero
deaths and reduced impaired driving in Minnesota… Since 2003, 229 miles of cable median barriers
have been installed, including the site of Jon’s crash. There have been no fatal cross-median
crashes where these have been installed. Since 2003, a statewide trauma system involving
104 hospitals has been established, reducing traffic fatalities by 9%.
Since 2003, 30,000 Minnesota students have seen “How to Save a Life,” a dramatic
teen-targeted video featuring Minnesota teens and young adults involved in and impacted
by serious and fatal traffic crashes. Extensive, federally-funded year-long advertising
campaigns target the most at-risk groups to promote enforcement programs and safety messages.
Since 2003, 10 counties have established DWI courts and a pilot ignition interlock program
was strengthened by the legislature in 2010. The pillars of TZD have, from the beginning,
been Education, Enforcement, Engineering and Emergency Medical and Trauma Services . The
Four E’s. Major Mike Asleson enforces the state’s
DWI laws as well as providing support for the troopers in the field who must enforce
these laws. His experiences have made him an authority on impaired driving and human
behavior. “Well in the last seven years enforcement
has remained, generally speaking, constant in terms of the number of officers, the number
of arrests. What has changed though; is that we are changing the way that we do DWI Saturations.
That instead of sending out a pack of officers, and a pack might be a half a dozen; it might
be twenty, depending on the area of the State. But instead of sending them out to just work
effectively and try to detect impaired drivers, which is important, now there is a greater
emphasis on getting more *** for the buck by doing high visibility saturations and making
a lot of noise in the media and having people really see why we’re out there. So that
when the citizen drives by and sees an officer, at roadside, with a citizen, they’re not
just assuming it’s for something like a routing speeding stop, they know this is a
DWI enforcement zone. And so, they can put those pieces of information together and then
hopefully tell a lot of their friends they really are out working *** DWI enforcement.
Because all the enforcement is really intended to keep people from driving while impaired
in the first place. It’s all about the deterrent effect.”
Brad Estoschen and his team install, and fix, cable median barriers for Mn/DOT. These barriers
are vital to preventing fatalities by stopping cars before they cross the median and hit
others head-on. “Cable median barrier acts like a spider
web and it catches a car and tangles it up. It does a good job of catching a vehicle and
holding it in place. We take a lot of things into consideration when we are trying to determine
where to install a cable median barrier. Two of the major factors that we look at are the
amount of traffic that’s out in the roadway and the type of ditch that we have. They are
likely to get hit and sometimes it can be frequently, as frequently as a week or every
couple weeks and sometimes we install them in places and they maybe get hit once a year.
It all depends on the amount of traffic and whether or not we have the luxury to place
them down in the center of the median or if you have to place them up closer to the roadway.
Whether or not you are a distracted driver that runs off the road or you slide off the
road due to the snow and ice conditions; I think maybe a cable median barrier is a good
safety thing to deploy.” Matt Essig is the director of the Lewiston,
MN Fire Department in Southeast Minnesota. His team arrives at many accident sites where
emotions are running high. Amid the chaos, safety becomes his priority.
“It’s scary at times because you are worried about your safety and also the safety of the
patients. The troopers are huge, cops are huge, in general, with those types of scenes,
secure the scene before we get there and make sure we’re safe so we can do our jobs efficiently.
The more you do this job, the more it just comes naturally. Pull up on an accident scene,
there’s people screaming, people bleeding. It’s just what we do, we’re trained to
do it and we’re trained very well to do it. If we don’t stay cool, the public isn’t
going to stay cool so that’s one of the reasons that we are so calm. You drink and
drive, you’re going eventually going to kill someone or yourself, maybe not the first
time or the second time or the third time but it will happen. Be smart, make smart choices,
don’t drink and drive.” A key to preventing impaired driving is coupling
educational outreach with enforcement campaigns. One very successful educational program brings
troopers into classrooms to give a presentation that describes the consequences of traffic
injuries and fatalities. The new video is called Young Forever.
Trooper Kevin Adrian recently delivered it to a class at Roseville high school.
“We’re going to walk up your driveway at one in the morning, and your parents will
get woken up like this (knocking on desk). Your parents are going to jump out of bed
going, ‘who in the heck is knocking on my door at one in the morning?’ And they are
going to run downstairs to the front door, wherever it is, and they are going to look
out the window and they are going to see two troopers with our hats standing there. And
I guarantee you their hearts are going to sink. Because what news are we going to give
them? Your child is dead. We do not knock on doors to tell them that we brought your
child to juvenile detention center or to jail. We knock on doors to let someone know your
family member has just been killed in a car crash.”
Efforts are made throughout the year to promote DWI enforcement activities because significant
deterrence for impaired driving is the fear of being arrested. Informing the public through
media, advertising campaigns and community outreach helps to prevent impaired driving.
We can see the power of enforcement and education coming together through important new laws
and through the work of the criminal justice system. A great example of that is our DWI
Courts, a program designed to fix repeat offenders so they never drink and drive again. Judge
Robert Awsumb directs the DWI Court for Ramsey County.
“The DWI Court Program in Ramsey County includes only gross misdemeanor DWI offenders
who have three or more DWI’s in their lifetime. The program is structured in three phases.
The basic program conditions, obviously, require that a person stay sober, refrain from drugs
and alcohol. Initially, they’re usually on the ankle bracelet until they get into
treatment, then we remove the bracelet. After that, in addition to the testing, we have
been fortunate enough to partner with the Saint Paul Police Department and the Ramsey
County Sheriff’s Department to pay home visits to folks by members of those law enforcement
agencies. The stories that I hear are mostly come at the time of graduation and I’ll
always ask these people, ‘Tell me what your life was like eighteen months ago when you
were arrested on this last DWI.’ And I just heard a story last week from a guy who says,
‘Judge, my life was in the toilet. I walked out of the Law Enforcement Center in Ramsey
County and I had nowhere to go. My family disowned me. I had three DWI’s in the last
two years. No one would let me stay with them. And I walked over to the Gospel Mission and
I got a room and I have been sober ever since for the last seventeen months. And now my
family wants me around, they invite me over and I have a very nice place to work or to
live.” Currently 10 counties have established DWI
courts, and other counties have intensive supervision programs and staggered sentencing
to reduce re-offense. Brad Snell lost his brother to a drunk driving
crash and was pulled over for the same offense ten years later.
That arrest was a life changing event for Brad and he looked for a way to help others
make the right decisions about alcohol and driving. His first impact panel convinced
him that he could help by telling his story. Brad: “I heard these people tell stories
about loved ones that they lost due to drunk driving and also people who were involved
in a drunk driving accident and how it’s affected them. And after it was over, I asked
the people who run it if they’d let me speak. So, the next month I went to the Impact Panel,
the same building, and then the next month I was a speaker. And I have been doing that
once a month, the same building, third Tuesday every month and I just tell my story. The
way I look at it, you don’t have to be a doctor to save a life. This is, kind of, my
way of being a doctor and saving lives.” The faces of impaired driving are our faces—faces
of loved ones no longer with us, faces of young people we are reaching out to, faces
of families affected by tragedy, faces of regret for those who have made this choice,
and the faces of our fellow citizens who don’t get it yet.
Our mission is to make sure more Minnesota faces, year by year, can shine on their families.
You’ve met impaired drivers face to face. You’ve seen first-hand the damage they’ve
done. You’ve responded to the horrifying fatal
crashes as a result of impaired driving. The goal of 400 or fewer deaths is within
reach for 2010. Now is our time to continue the fight against impaired driving and all
of the preventable traffic deaths…