Assistant Commissioner of the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee Chuck DeWeese introduces the "No Empty Chair" program Friday at West Genessee High School. The "No Empty Chairs" campaign is a statewide effort to minimize crashes involving teen drivers.
Credit John Smith / WAER News
Prom season is upon us. State Police and local law enforcement reached out to West Genesee High School students to kick off the state-wide “No Empty Chair” campaign ahead of their prom on Saturday.
Assistant Commissioner of the Governor’s Traffic Safety CommitteeChuck DeWeese stood next to an empty chair draped with a blue cap and gown while he spoke.
“We want every one of you to dance at your prom, play in your games, and be in your chairs at graduation,” DeWeese said. “It may seem like it can’t happen to you, but it can. Crashes, injuries, and even death can happen to any of us, especially with younger drivers who don’t have as much experience behind the wheel. No seat should be left empty because of a tragedy on the roads this year or any year.”
Two large photos of a smiling young man in a lacrosse jersey were also displayed. Students eventually learned from Marianne Angelillo of Skaneateles that the photos of the boy in the jersey were of her son Matthew.
“My family will never be better without Matt,” Angelillo said. “Matthew was seventeen, a junior, involved in everything in live in high school.”
In 2004, Matthew Angelillo died as a passenger in a high speed crash. In her presentation, Angelillo used details of her son’s life to illustrate how car crashes can happen to anyone.
“If he was sitting amongst you in an assembly here today at seventeen, and I had tapped him on the shoulder said ‘Matt, I have something that I need to tell you, and that is you have one month to live.’ He would look at me as a seventeen year old, full of life, full of hope, and would have said ‘What are you talking about? I just finished my junior year. I just aced my SATs. I want to go to the Airforce Academy. I have tickets to Dave Matthews for the first time this summer.’”
Angellilo travels across the State to speak to youth about the dangers of drinking and driving in hopes other families won’t have to go suffer a loss of a young person. Between 2012 to 2014, as much as 13 percent of fatal traffic crashes in New York State occurred with drivers between the ages 16 to 20.