Photo Flash: Stage and Screen Personalities Gather To Save Lives

On Saturday, August 19th, members of LA County Sheriffs Dept, The Los Angeles County Fire Department Station 70 in Malibu, along with several concerned celebrities gathered on the Pacific Coast Highway to raise awareness of the dangers of Drowsy Driving by taking positions at the corner adjacent to the firehouse to hand out informational materials and samples of Alert Drops (Alertdrops.com) to drivers and pedestrians.

Those who participated included Alison Arngrim (Little House on the Prairie), Emmy-winner Carolyn Hennesy (GH/True Blood/The Bay), Kate Linder (Y&R), recording artist Roslyn Kind and a unique mini cast reunion with "Happy Days" Co-Stars, Marion Ross. Don Most and Anson Williams

One of the days participants, Emmy winner, Carolyn Hennesy, remarked "Hopefully, we've alerted a few people to the dangers of driving drowsy. Thank you, Anson Williams, for saving lives!" Recording artist, Roslyn Kind added, "I was so happy to be part of Saturday's "Don't Drive Drowsy" awareness in Malibu on PCH promoting AlertDrops.Com. Falling asleep at the wheel causes more accidents than drunken driving."

As the country approaches National Drowsy Drivers Awareness Week in November, Anson Williams, who has recently been acknowledged as an expert by the LAPD, CA Senate and U.S. Congress, hopes to bring awareness of this long ignored and deadly issue.

In the United States, 250,000 drivers fall asleep at the wheel every day, according to the Division of Sleep Medicine at (Harvard Medical School) and in a national poll by the National Sleep Foundation, 54% of adult drivers said they had driven while drowsy during the past year with 28% saying they had actually fallen asleep while driving. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drowsy driving is a factor in more than 100,000 crashes, resulting in 6550 deaths and 80,000 injuries annually in the USA.

Recently released Drowsy Driving stats include the fact that 30% of drivers report dozing off behind the wheel and an average of 6,400 people die each year as a result of driving drowsy.

Statistics show that deaths and accidents related to Drowsy Driving increases during the summer. In fact, drunk driving has now taken a backseat to drowsy driving as casualties numbers grow, effecting 1 in 5 accidents and responsible for thousands of deaths and BILLIONS of dollars in damage each year. Statistics show that deaths and accidents related to Drowsy Driving increases during the summer.

It is not surprising that Drowsy Driving has become a leading problem, given the enormous pressure put on people to not only succeed, but to support a family in ever changing financial times, while still saving for the future. They are working longer and harder than ever before, and the result often finds the individual falling asleep at the wheel, making it a very unwelcome and dangerous scenario for drivers and pedestrians.

"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever; the goal is to create something that will," has become a motto that has been embraced by Anson Williams, who is continuing the efforts of his famous cousin (whom he called Uncle), Dr. Henry Heimlich (Heimlich Maneuver), by saving lives. Perhaps best know for his role of Potsie Weber on the hit series "Happy Days," Anson is currently in the process of working with numerous organizations in several cities, in an effort to create an ongoing campaign to raise Drowsy Driving Awareness. As a father of five girls, he is concerned with the growing probleM. Williams is taking a little known fact that has saved his own life to the public that could do the same for other families across the country. "I was having considerable trouble staying awake while driving home after long 15 hr workdays. My uncle, Dr. Heimlich, recommended keeping a lemon or a hot pepper in the car and whenever I started to feel drowsy to simply bite into it. He explained how capsaicin from pepper or natural, citric acid from a lemon are the only two ingredients that stimulate the tongue's sensory neurons, immediately alerting the brain to wake-up, your own adrenalin naturally kicked into a reflex action. I chose the lemon and it instantly worked, making me naturally alert and awake at the wheel without having any unnecessary stimulants, bad ingredients, etc, in my system. Actually, nothing even entered my system.again, my immediate alertness was caused from a natural reflex action that stimulated adrenalin. Research studies have found that over 100 million drivers become drowsy at the wheel of their car, one out of five admitting to falling asleep causing thousands of accidents and unnecessary fatalities," says Anson Williams

One of the days sponsors included BurgerFi Malibu. "We chose to participate in Driving Drowsy Awareness Day because we are in an industry where employees work late, and/or long hours, ultimately driving home drowsy. This means that many of the employees working are commuting anywhere from a half hour to two hours to and from work. That is a lot of drowsy drivers!" says Robert Alimea of BurgerFi.

Photo Credit: Dave Tarr