The Following is a letter sent by our founder, Melissa Wandall to the Orlando Sentinel in December of 2008.

I am proud of the little girl that she has become. I am blessed. My heart is filled with love as my daughter Madison Grace sings her little heart out at her Christmas program with her Pre-Kindergarten class. For a brief moment I am lost in her sheer happiness. At this moment life seems untouchable – I am complete in her bliss. In the next moment I am reminded of the deep loss and to savor every moment. My heart aches for the hole in her heart that her mommy can never fill. Where is the love that my daughter deserves but will physically never know?

A quite tear, once again, rolls down my cheek, another reminder that he is gone. I want to share my pride and my admiration for this angel that we were given. Where is my beautiful, caring and loving young husband that deserves to be here with me sharing our daughters “moments?” I flinch. I am there again; lights, sirens, chaos and the cries of complete devastation by family members and friends. Today, five years later I am still haunted by that life-altering evening. In less than a moment, two weeks before the birth of Madison Grace her daddy’s life was senselessly taken by a RED LIGHT RUNNER.

Briefly taking one back to that evening of October, 24, 2003 Life was full of love, hope and laughter. Just five days prior my husband Mark and I had celebrated our one year wedding anniversary and in less than 3 weeks we would know the gender of our unborn child. The anticipation of meeting our love child filled our days. Life was good. It was a Friday night – my brother and husband decided to go out for a quick bite to eat. My husband and I said our good-byes. Our usual rituals of “love you, love you too, miss you, will miss you too- but will see you soon” took on a whole new meaning. On their way home my brother the driver and my husband the passenger were laughing and talking about plans of buying a boat together. In one second that simple exciting adventure turned to tragedy. Just 1 and ¼ miles from our home my brother stopped at a red light- when the arrow turned green my brother proceeded through the intersection, out of nowhere a vehicle came plowing through the intersection at 48-51 miles per hour and struck my brothers vehicle KILLING my husband immediately and SERIOUSLY injuring my brother. As I stated earlier, life would never be the same again. The light had been red for ½ of a mile when a motorist with their child in the back seat of their vehicle blatantly ran that light. No skid marks were to be found they did not even apply their brakes! This motorist’s gross negligence would alter our family for a life-time. In less than an instant my husband was gone! I would never physically feel his touch again. From that moment on I would have to hold my husbands smile, laughter and love in my heart forever.

How does one go on and make sense of it all? I had to replace the whys? I could not go on in my life knowing that Mark was just another statistic. I value his life way more than that. I had to make sure that my husbands’ life would go on in a meaningful way. Mark left me with this little gift of life; Madison Grace. I would take our heartache, that painful energy of losing our loved one and turn it into a life-saving gift for others as well as my daughter. It was now up to me to point our daughter in the right direction. I had to show her that when things happen in our lives, they are not “stumbling blocks” or a reason to give in and let our circumstances destroy who we are – but a time to live, a time to step forward and rise above the situation. I had to find that one true “device” that would put my heart to rest. We all have the power to love, to let go and to live on. This does not mean forgetting about what has happened – this means having the power to embrace our tragedy, to rise above it and utilize the negative energy by turning it into a positive experience for others to learn and grow.

I had accepted the fact that my husband was not coming home again but I could not accept sitting back and doing nothing about it. From the moment of his physical death life would never be the same again. MARKS DEATH WAS PREVENTABLE. I had to take action! The STOP! Red Light Running Coalition of Florida was born.

Our purpose is to make Floridians knowledgeable of the red light running problem and to provide ways to improve upon it through legislation, enforcement and education.

The motorist who ran the red light that killed my husband and seriously injured my brother had 10 points on their license and 7 violations. One of their last offences was for running a red light and being ticketed for it. This time they not only took a ticket - but took a life! For killing Madison’s daddy, they received a $500.00 fine and community service. If their violation, and others like it, had been taken more seriously, perhaps they would have learned their lesson before they took my young husbands life.

My greatest cause is finding a way to prevent motorist from running red lights. The Mark Wandall Safety Act was born. Each year (for the past four years) during session I am in Tallahassee with the rest of the advocates pleading with our State Senators and Representatives to enact this law.

The Mark Wandall Safety Act would allow cameras to be put up at the MOST DANGEROUS intersections in our state. These cameras will only take a picture after one has blatantly run the red light- not the yellow light. Ones back tires have to be over the white cross-walk when the light is ALREADY RED in order for the camera to “snap” a picture of the back license plate. One more picture is taken of the back of the license plate AFTER one has gone through the intersection on RED.

This is an issue of prevention and safety. This is not a violation of privacy. We all have a RIGHT to be safe on our highways. My personal opinion is that driving is a privilege and not a right. I do not think that motorist set out each day to run red lights, I do however believe that motorist are too busy multi-tasking in their “loaded weapons” to pay attention and lives are being tragically altered due to red light running crashes. We have to change the mentality on our highways. This dangerous cycle needs to be curbed. This is the year 2008 if there is life-saving technology available for our state to utilize then what are we waiting for?

This is an important issue and I am asking for public support. I am also asking all of our state representatives and senators to “step up to plate.” The Mark Wandall Safety Act needs to be passed. Going forward with this bill this year our cities and counties need to be able to implement the systems. We need to put it on the violators and not the tax payers. With this law a ticket is issued in the mail and the violator pays for the ticket. No points are assessed and it is not sent into ones insurance company. We are just simply trying to curb these dangerous behaviors and save lives. These cameras have proven over and over to cut down on intersection crashes, especially the right-angle crashes, like the one that killed Mark. As a society we need to stop worrying about penalizing the violator “too much.” What about the innocent lives that are “caught in the crossfire” due to the violators negligence? Their lives are taken, gone without a moments notice leaving their family members to “pick up the pieces.”

We need to give cities what they need to make this program work. We need to stop making everything so complicated and so political and get back to basics. Red light Running crashes are preventable. The Mark Wandall Safety Act needs to be passed in 2009 it is vital in making our highways safer.

I am not what some might call a vigil-anti. I am a woman whose heart has been broken and knows first hand what a Red Light Runner can do to ones family. I am a woman who loves her beloved husband and daughter just that much. I am Marked by Grace. For them, and all of the innocent lives that are yet to be touched, I just want to educate and raise awareness of this deadly epidemic. I want to pass a law in my husbands name so that innocent lives can be saved. Please drive as if you’re most beloved is in the other vehicle. We all deserve to come home at the end of the day, to see our families and friends. It is simple, if we work together to change behaviors there will be less devastation on our highways and lives will be saved in a beautiful way. Won’t you join me? Be a leader and not a follower; please….stop on red…………life depends on it!

If you would like to read more about the STOP! Red Light Running Coalition and what you can do to help please visit www.floridastopsonred.org. For any questions or comments or misconceptions concerning the cameras Melissa can be reached at www.themarkwandallfoundation.com.