This is a transcription of a podcast that aired on 5/18/2020. You can listen to the recording here

Welcome to the TraffiCalm network and our first episode

I’m your host Bob Felt. Our program is about driving conversations, keeping traffic calm, and saving lives. Since this is our first episode, it only makes sense to begin where the TraffiCalm network was born- in Post Falls, Idaho.

With me today from that location is our first guest, he is the president and owner of TraffiCalm System- Mr. John Ragan.

Hello, John

Hello, Bob, thank you for having me on the podcast today.

You’re more than welcome. Can you share with us where your passion came from? I mean, did something happen in your past that made you dedicated to providing solutions in the roadway safety industry?

Ya as a matter of fact. And you hit on one of my keywords when you say passion because I certainly have a passion for this. So ya, let me tell you a quick little story. Uh, it happened a few decades ago. I was driving along, fortunately going at a relatively low rate of speed. A child, eight to ten year old, boy rode his bicycle right out in front of me, coming out of nowhere. I slammed on my breaks, knocked the kid over, and in haste got out of my rig to make sure the kid was okay. Thank goodness he was; his bike was bent up, but he barely had a scratch on him. Once I realized this kid was okay, my anxiety, my fear turned to anger and I really started to get on this kid and yelling at him, ‘you know, you really scared me.’ The motorist behind me saw all this going on and he jumped out of his car to come up and calm me down because he could see I was getting very agitated with this little boy. I think my yelling at the boy probably scared him more than getting tipped over on his bicycle. At any rate, that event turned out fortunate; there was no injury or whatnot. I learned a lesson about calmness during that event, you might say.

I bet you did. Thanks for sharing that, now I understand where the name came from. This is the TraffiCalm Network and I’m proud to be part of this program. I’m wondering now if we could talk about the content, or your vision for the podcast, John. Can we do that a little bit?

Ya, I’d be happy to! And, maybe, Bob, the easiest way to talk about that would be, perhaps, to talk about what we don’t want it to become. We don’t want it to be an infomercial on TraffiCalm’s products. While we engineer and sell many innovative traffic products; I see this podcast as being a place for conversation where we can hear from traffic safety experts from across the country. And I really like the word ‘network.’ If you really stop and think about that word network, what does that word mean? In my mind it implies, it requires, input from others and that we can’t do this alone. The TraffiCalm Network name, and the goal that we have set up for this podcast, will help guide us through these conversations. [It] will keep us focused on learning together, listening together, with the experts sharing information- and their experiences. As a group, as a community, how we can all work together saving lives, [and] making our roadways a safer place.

Many decisions are life and death matters, and transportation affects all of us in one way, shape or form, I know that. I also know that all of the transportation system users are factored into different things. I think that gives us some content for the program. But, do you have any other thoughts, about, you know, where we could go with the podcast? I think you mentioned something about experts? Would we want to broaden the web, so to speak, and expand the network on that?

Ya, you know, as a matter of fact. We want to design this, lay it out, to where we are focusing on all facets of traffic safety; not any particular segment. So, the more guest that we have talking about innovations in the industry, solutions, the better and more effective we will become as getting information out to our listeners. As I said earlier, we did not create the TraffiCalm Network to promote our products, though we certainly could have. I love talking about them! But, it’s just not the intent with this broadcast. I believe our listeners are going to find this very educational, informative, and worth their time listening to. Bob, I want to thank you for letting our listeners know that we have dedicated a continually higher level of safety and calmness to our roadways. I know you, also, are very experienced in this industry. You certainly understand as I do, and our listeners do, that traffic safety is a very serious business

Again, I agree with you so much, John. I appreciate your comments and the direction of this podcast. So thank you very much for your thoughts this morning. It was nice hearing from you about the goal of the TraffiCalm Network. Well, that’s all we have time for. I leave you with this today- Be safe, driving conversations, keeping traffic calm, and saving lives. This is the TraffiCalm Network.