Help The Wheeler's Get to Washington

THE LANCE WHEELER MEMORIAL ROADWAY SAFETY INITIATIVE ... IS INVITED TO SPEAK WITH THE FEDERAL HIGHWAY SAFETY ADMINISTRATION JUNE 28, 2017. PLEASE HELP US IN COVERING OUR EXPENSES FOR AIRLINE TRAVEL, HOTEL, FOOD, etc. On October 6, 2016 the Wheeler family experienced a terrible tragedy when Lance Benson Wheeler (30) was killed by a Et Plus guard rail terminal when his motorcycle struck it after Lance was forced off of the road for reasons unknown to us. The same day we lost our loving Matriarch Helen Wheeler to natural causes. Grief is an understatement when describing the toll this tragedy took upon our family. Determined not to let what happened to Lance happen to anyone else, we have embarked upon a mission of safety for our loved ones on the road and for our loved ones who are in heaven. The following letter was sent to Elaine Chao, and we have received an invitation to speak with many key decision makers within the DOT at the federal level. We could use your support in getting there, keeping in mind we know a one and done meeting is not our goal, we will continue to go back to Washington as many times as it takes before something is done to address the severe lack of safety within our highway systems as it relates to guard rails and roadway design. Elaine L. Chao Secretary of The Department of Transportation P. O. Box 1118 Washington, D. C. 20013 Dear Ms. Chao, The Lance Wheeler Memorial Roadway Safety Initiative (LWMRSI) was created by myself and my youngest son Travis Wheeler, in honor of my son and Travis' big brother Lance Wheeler who was fatally injured in a motorcycle crash on October 6, 2016 when he impacted a guardrail end terminal head-on in the Austin, Texas area. Determined to not let our loved one die in vain, we embarked upon a mission to fundamentally change the design, materials and installation procedures for guardrails while completely eliminating their end terminals. It is our observation that the design standards used as guidelines for guardrail placement and subsequent end terminals are far from "safety first" and in fact in most cases are actual hazards themselves. For the past three months we have met with numerous State of Texas elected officials including representatives, senators, the Transportation Advisor to Governor Abbott and numerous TxDot officials while also spending hours and hours on the phone with different entities across the country and the world researching roadway safety, specifically all types of guardrails. In Texas we are losing nine citizens everyday, 3600 per year of which half are due to accidents involving leaving the roadway and half of those due to hitting trees. DOT's across the country, including Texas, are building roadways with guardrails that literally guard "nothing" as they are installed at a starting point far too close to the actual hazard they are designed to protect against, leaving enough clear zone space to allow an approaching vehicle to completely miss the guardrail and ultimately encounter the hazard. Longer guardrails engineered with newer, more impact absorbing materials that actually "seal off" the clear zone area leading to the hazard would not only save vehicles from hitting the specific hazard but would also greatly reduce the number of vehicles that leave the road and hit a tree and therefore save thousands of lives. It is our position that guardrails should be designed to actually "save lives" and not just "keep a bad situation from getting worse" as we were recently told by a Trinity Industries media relations representative which is a far cry from the words "Mission Zero" found on all TxDot letterhead, websites and emails. Having said that, we have not been able to identify a single State of Texas long term plan to reduce the number of roadway deaths much less reach "zero deaths". Ms. Chao, we understand that you have been given the task of improving and rebuilding all areas of our nation's transportation infrastructure including roadways. Such an undertaking is going to require a lot of "out of the box" thinking which is exactly what we have been required to do since the day we laid our son and brother to rest. We didn't pick this battle, but we are determined to win it. Our ideas and visions of how to make our roadways safer are not rocket science. But they do require one to think strategically and not just tactically. There hasn't been a strategic national transportation system overhaul since the interstate system was designed seventy years ago in the Eisenhower presidency. Considering the exponential technological advances that are inevitably coming to the transportation industry can we still rely upon current roadway design standards for another seventy years? Spread throughout the country are guardrails and end terminals and design inconsistencies and insufficient maintenance record keeping that affect each of us on a daily basis. And while our "Initiative" is admittedly focused upon what may seem to be a small piece of the overall puzzle we believe it to be a critical piece in the overall scope of the redesign priorities and thought processes that are needed now and in the future. We are well aware of what must be an extremely busy schedule for you, but we would like to request a meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss this issue in person and see if we can plant these seeds of change within your own vision of the future of our country's transportation system. Sincerely, Don Wheeler - Director Mailing address: The Lance Wheeler Memorial Roadway Safety Initiative 208 Leveritts Loop Wimberley, Tx 78676 Phone: [phone redacted] Email: [email redacted] Co-Directors: Travis Wheeler and Mike Thibodeaux