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This year, New Rochelle Detective Lillian Sanchez and Officer Kenny Hudson joined Barbara Ward, a traffic safety specialist with AAA and local students Eddie Hayes and Armando Sanchez to kick off AAA New York’s 69th annual “School’s Open – Drive Carefully” campaign at police headquarters.
The department has mounted several signs warning drivers that schools are open in the city and thousands of children are heading back to school. Similar signage will also be posted by nearby departments in Eastchester and Mount Vernon.
Throughout the state, AAA will distribute thousands of posters to local police departments to remind drivers that children and school buses begin flooding the streets in September. The posters can be found at major intersections, popular areas of business and at all school crossings. More than 10,000 bumper stickers with the same sentiment will also be circulated around the state.
The “Drive Carefully” program was started in 1933 in St. Louis, Mo., by P.F. Drury, a former safety director for the Automobile Club of Missouri. It was picked up by AAA clubs around the nation two years later, and made its way to New York in 1945.
Donna Galasso, the assistant director of AAA New York’s Traffic Safety unit, said drivers and bicyclists should be prepared to stop on either side of the street for school buses and students crossing the street.
“The help we get from our club-area police departments adds to the effectiveness of our ‘School’s Open’ campaign,” she said. “The efforts of [Officers] D’Onofrio and Solano will increase safety for all students.”
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