World Day of Remembrance recalls victims of road accidents, symbolized by shoes

Last year, 1,412 people died in road accidents in North Carolina.

They were commemorated on Sunday as part of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Victims – with pairs of shoes representing the victims.

There were not enough pairs to symbolize an individual match for each victim. But more than 1,000 couples were on display at the State Capitol's downtown premises, neatly arranged in neat arches beneath the George Washington statue at the south end, toward Fayetteville Street.

The shoes were in almost every style, size, color and condition imaginable, from new to deep pink to pink. They range from a pair of size 18 white Nike sneakers to tiny baby shoes, with everything else: high heels, tops, fangs, galoshes, sandals, flip flops, home shoes, even ballet slippers and shoes ski.

Some of the shoes had yellow paper flowers, placed in memory of specific victims. Most volunteer organizers had a personal connection to the problem.

One of them, Christopher Carnes, aged 22, donated a pair of black cowboy boots in the honor of an uncle recently deceased in a fatal accident in Monroe.

"He was killed by a distracted driver at a four-panel stop sign by a child who had just obtained his driver's license," said Carnes, a recent graduate of the University of Toronto. 39 State of New Brunswick "The kid was looking for candies on the floor, Skittles or something, and he jumped across the stop sign."

It was the third edition of Raleigh's World Day of Remembrance, which began to "draw attention to the suffering and grief felt by millions of people as a result of preventable traffic violence."

The local organizing group called NC Vision Zero, which advocates for traffic safety under the auspices of the N State Research and Transportation Education Institute.

"The main message is that it's a public health crisis," said Tracy Anderson, program coordinator for NC Vision Zero. "Traveling is the most dangerous thing we do every day. We could save more than 1,000 lives a year if everyone got up, slowed down, kept their hands on the wheel and kept the spirit in their driving. "

The other 364 days of the year, the shoes are stored at NC State. N.C. Vision Zero collects them from donors all year round.

"We hope to reduce the number of deaths while we still collect shoes," said Andy Pottkotter, one of the other volunteers. "Maybe this number will converge and we can start throwing them away. It would be good. "