(January 9, 2011) McLEAN, Va. — With millions of car shoppers visiting dealerships each year, it’s an ideal opportunity for the nation’s new-car and -truck dealers to help raise the awareness of road safety issues with motorists of all ages.

A new exhibit, “Dealers Driving Road Safety” which is set to launch at the NADA Convention & Expo in San Francisco, Feb. 5 to 7, will attempt to do just that.

“The basic concept is for dealer groups who are already participating in safety programs to show their fellow dealers how they can begin similar programs in their own communities,” said Andy Koblenz, NADA Vice President of Legal and Regulatory Affairs. “It’s designed to be a peer-to-peer or ‘dealers reaching out to other dealers’ initiative.”

The exhibit will focus on three areas — child passenger safety, safe teen driving and rural driving safety:

    • Past NADA Chairman Annette Sykora, dealer principal of Smith South Plains in Levelland, Texas, and members of her staff will be on site at the NADA convention to meet with dealers and answer their questions about hosting child passenger safety programs. Sykora, an expert in this area, has held several dealership events on child passenger safety.

    • DCH Auto Group Vice Chairman Susan Scarola and other DCH staff will be available to dealers to discuss their efforts on safe teen driving. DCH’s teen driving safety initiatives have received national recognition. DCH Auto Group operates 27 dealerships in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and California.

    • Incoming NADA Vice Chairman Bill Underriner and members of his staff from Underriner Motors in Billings, Mont., will lend their expertise on rural driving safety. The state of Montana has the highest percentage of rural roads in the nation, according to the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety.