Let me begin this month's visit to you with an apology. Many of you have sent me emails regarding your orders for our highway safety videotape. Folks, I want you to know that Highway Safety for Emergency Responders has succeeded beyond our wildest imagination. Our initial supply was exhausted in short order.

Please do not worry. Thanks to the renewal of our U.S. Fire Administration grant, we have been funded to order an additional quantity of these informative training tools. If you placed an order, and have yet to receive the tape, please be patient. These things take time. I am sure that once you receive the tape, you will be well pleased.

There have been some recent problems with our website. I will not bore you with the arcane, electronic details. Let me just state that we are back on line and clicking smoothly. We have reconstructed from our files.

Last month I had the privilege of sitting in on a NIOSH investigation briefing in New Jersey. Mark Mc Fall and Virginia Lutz of the he Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program came to New Jersey in order to investigate a tragedy that struck a small south Jersey community. Their work is a critical element in the drive to lower the deaths and injuries firefighters and EMS personnel have been experiencing through the years. We need to find out what is happening and work to eliminate the hazards that are identified.

Just how bad is the problem? My research with the fire service component has shown that the number of fire fighters struck and killed by motor vehicles has dramatically increased within recent years. During the 5-year period between 1995 and 1999, 17 fire fighters were struck and killed by motorists.

These numbers represent an 89% increase in the number of line-of-duty deaths over the previous 5-year period (between 1990 and 1994), when 9 fire fighters were struck and killed by motor vehicles. These statistics come from the National Fire Protection Association, and we thank them for their yeoman service is tracking firefighter deaths and injuries.

The Emergency Responder Safety Institute is working to move to the next level. A number of our initial goals that grew out of the conferences in Maryland have been met.

1. We have a website up and running to keep knowledge flowing.
2. The highway safety awareness tape has proven to be a greater success than anyone of us ever dreamed.
3. Thanks to Ron Moore in Texas, we have a reproducible set of highway safety SOP's for your use.
4. Thanks to Jack Sullivan, we have an awareness level training program that has been delivered in a number of locations.

Not to bad for a group that began as an ad hoc effort among a number of fire people who had lost a friend to a tragic highway incident in Maryland. However, we are not resting on our laurels. We are moving to the next level. Within the next year or so, we want to have an instructor certification and training program underway.

It is very important for people to be able to show our videotape as part of a fire department drill. However, if the full training package is to be delivered, the Institute is convince that the courses must be delivered by people trained to present our programs in the proper way. We will be working to decide just how this all will work.

To those among you who have been sharing their tragedies with me, thank you. As I have often stated, I cannot tell the world what is going on unless it is first shared with me. I will do what I can to keep information flowing. Take care and have a safe summer season.