MHP: Reduce highway fatalities to 'Stop the Knock'
The Mississippi Highway Patrol launched its “Stop the Knock” campaign Thursday with personal stories of troopers telling family members their loved ones died in a car accident.
“I have seen mothers pass out and hit the floor,” Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner Albert Santa Cruz said. “I have seen fathers get on their knees and cry.”
The campaign's name refers to the knocks troopers have to make on the doors of people who have lost loved ones in fatal wrecks.
Countless times throughout his career, Cruz said, he has asked parents to visit a morgue to “help or try to identify a mangled body of their teenage son or daughter.”
To date, 228 people have been killed on Mississippi highways in 2016.
SEE ALSO: Mississippi among nation's top states for teen fatalities
“Traffic safety is one of the main priorities of the Mississippi Highway Patrol, and it’s taken very seriously,” Johnny Poulos, the Highway Patrol's public affairs director, said Thursday. “It is a constant battle in lowering the number of traffic crashes and lives lost on our roadways in our state.”
According to Poulos, with 10,900 miles of highway, “Mississippi has some of the deadliest roadways in the nation,”
The state ranks third in the nation in teenage fatalities on highways.
“This should be a huge concern to every parent,” Poulos said. “It is definitely a huge concern for the Mississippi Highway Patrol and all law enforcement agencies around the state.”
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The campaign will run throughout the summer.
“We strongly feel that this collaboration will reduce the number of knocks that the Mississippi Highway Patrol has to make informing someone that their father, their mother, their sister, their brother or their child have been killed in a fatal car accident,” said Penny Conn, director of the Mississippi Office of Highway Safety. “It’s going to take all of us working together to stop the knock.”
Contact Sarah Fowler at sfowler@gannett.com or 601-961-7303. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.