Highway Watch

By Lydia Abarr

In this day and age safety has become an important issue that our country is faced with addressing. An important part of national safety includes the highway sector. This issue is being addressed through the American Trucking Association’s (ATA) Highway Watch® program, which is a security program that uses the skills, experiences and “road smarts” of America’s transportation workers to help protect this critical infrastructure and the transportation of goods, services and people.

A press release issued by the Transportation Security Administration on March 15, 2004 announced that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has teamed with ATA to expand the Highway Watch® program. This program will provide training and communications infrastructure to prepare 400,000 transportation professionals to respond in the event they or their cargo are the target of a terrorist attack and to share valuable intelligence with TSA if they witness potential threats. The program’s primary goal is to prevent attacks by teaching highway professionals to avoid becoming a target for terrorists who would use large vehicles or hazardous cargoes as weapons. A secondary goal is to train highway professionals how to recognize and report suspicious activity.

The participants of Highway Watch® are volunteers that have been organized by a locally designated organization in each state. The volunteers are trained by security professionals, law enforcement, and other expert personnel. Participants are given observational tools and the opportunity to exercise their skills to spot problems and report them rapidly and accurately to the authorities. After the participants have completed their training they receive a phone number and ID number to provide the operator when they call. The operator does not accept calls from anyone except callers who have ID numbers. Once the operator verifies the ID number they route the call to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.

Highway Watch®, formerly a joint project of ATA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, began operation in May 1998. Under the cooperative agreement, ATA will expand the current 24-hour national call-in center to handle an increasing volume of calls from highway professionals. Also, state Amber Alert missing children programs will be coordinated with Highway Watch®. For more detailed information and to become a participant, go to: www.highwaywatch.com