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CNN Live Event/Special

Transportation Department Launches New Child Safety Campaign

Aired April 30, 2001 - 10:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And we're going to go ahead and transit to that news conference, which is taking place in Washington.

This is Jason Vines. He is vice president of Ford Motor Company. Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

JASON VINES, VICE PRESIDENT, FORD MOTOR COMPANY: ... on child passenger safety by being with us today. Secretary Mineta has been a leader in transportation safety for many decades and it's a great privilege to welcome him. Mr. Secretary?

NORMAN MINETA, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Thank you very, very much. And I am really delighted to be here this morning with all of you. We are, as you probably know, going to be launching a new exciting safety campaign and it's called Boost America. President Jacques Nasser of Ford Motor Company, the chief executive officer; John Eyler, of Toys 'R' Us; the chair-elect, Eleanor Johnston Furdon (ph) and the United Way of America board of directors and our safety ambassador, Autumn Alexander Skeen, are all joining together in this effort.

Heeding the safety rules, Ambassador Skeen made sure that her four-year-old son Anton, who had outgrown his child safety seat was buckled up with a seatbelt. Tragically, that was not enough. The belt was too big for his small frame and when there was a crash, Anton was killed.

Now, committed to ensuring that this sort of tragedy would not happen again, Ms. Skeen led an effort in her own state of Washington to pass the nation's first law requiring booster seats for children too big for child safety seats but too small for regular seatbelts.

Today, California and Arkansas have passed similar laws and nearly 20 other states are now considering them. So Autumn Alexander's scheme is truly an ambassador for safety.

Now, I want to thank Ford Motor Company for their great leadership and their great generous donation of not only one million booster seats to parents and givers, caregivers, but also their $30 million investment in the boost to -- Boost America program, and they will, this will do so much to advance our efforts to protect our youngest passengers. Now, my colleagues and I at the Department of Transportation look forward to working with Ford Motor Company and all of our safety partners to make the Boost America program an overwhelming success. And this morning I am excited to be here with the students of Anthony Bowen Elementary School. Good morning, kids.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Good morning.

MINETA: And I want to thank the principal, Principal Hawkins, for opening your school to us. Yours is one of the first schools that I'm having the opportunity to visit as Secretary of Transportation.

KAGAN: We've been listening in to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta. He is part of an announcement today talking about a huge campaign. This is the largest child passenger safety campaign in the history of the automotive industry. Basically the idea is to get booster seats in the cars of families that have kids that are between the ages of four to eight, the experts seeing this as a niche that is missed. The little kids get into car seats and the bigger kids do well in seatbelts, but these kids need booster seats to keep them extra safe and comfortable.

This is a joint effort between the Ford Motor Company, the Department of Transportation and Nickelodeon.

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