Campaign to reduce wrecks shows dead Marines - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Campaign to reduce wrecks shows dead Marines

A glitzy new video featuring championship motorcyclists and a poster campaign using the images of Marines killed in traffic accidents last year are among the Corps’ latest efforts to reduce traffic fatalities.

Called “Semper Ride,” the hour-long video begins with two CH-46 helicopters soaring over desert terrain while four dirt bikers roar over a sandy embankment below. Hip-hop music plays in the background.

Later, motorcyclists such as current “StuntWars” champion Chris “Teach” McNeil stress the importance of using protective gear and picking good locations to test out motorcycles, in between footage of motorcyclists pushing sport bikes to high speeds and around sharp corners.

“I used to warn these guys left and right,” McNeil tells Marines in one clip provided to Marine Corps Times. “But everybody wants the biggest and baddest and latest and greatest, and I’ve seen kids just wad themselves up 20 feet from the dealership.”

The campaign comes after a fiscal year in which 45 Marines died in private motor vehicle accidents, including a Corps-record 25 on motorcycles. Officials said the public awareness campaign will be rolled out across the service this spring, with the video debuting May 12 at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and June 25 at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The film includes numerous instructors, riders and consultants from throughout the professional motorcycle industry explaining in detail what each individual motorcycle is intended to do and how to improve riding skills on them, Marine officials said. High-tech camera equipment is used to show the point of view of individual riders as they maneuver bike tracks.

It eventually will be incorporated into the motorcycle safety programs for the Corps and the Navy.

“This is nothing like anything [the Defense Department] has ever produced,” said Peter Hill, the Corps’ senior safety engineer. “It’s absolutely pure Hollywood and MTV in the way it’s done and produced.”

Producing the video was one suggestion made at the Corps’ Executive Safety Board meeting held in November. In another effort discussed at the meeting, the Corps’ safety division has developed posters bearing the images of Marines who died in PMV accidents last year. Each shows the common access cards of dead Marines, and while their names have been blurred on the posters, their photographs are identifiable.

“It’s a personalization of the [statistics] we were hoping has a little more impact,” Hill said. “When you see the faces on the ID cards, it’s kind of striking.”

The posters will be rolled out this spring and hung in barracks, cafeterias and other places Marines congregate, Hill said. The first one was included in the most recent issue of “Ground Warrior,” a magazine published by the safety division. It includes images of 45 CACs, along with an ominous statement in boldface print:

“It happened to them. It can happen to you.”

The other posters were designed to put the fatality statistics in Marine terms, said Casey Tweedell, who designed them as communications manager for the safety division. One poster points out that “over one platoon” of Marines died in car and motorcycle accidents, and another says “over two squads” died on motorcycles.

The use of the CACs on each of the posters is not meant to be shocking or disrespectful, but to “put a face” with the statistics, safety officials said. It was unclear whether the Corps asked the dead Marines’ families for permission to use the images.

“When you look at a bar graph or a pie chart when you’re talking about statistics, it doesn’t really register to a lot of people that those are human beings,” Tweedell said. “Those are Marines. That was somebody’s fellow Marine. That was somebody’s brother, father, son, and I hope this makes that connection for Marines.”