Ocean City’s Walk Smart campaign revealed mascot name

of drivers — and more foot traffic. ocean city had a nice update to their walk smart campaign today — just in time for the holiday. here’s 47 abc’s justina coronel to tell us all about it. today we unveil the name and cheswick is what people voted for and we are happy to have cheswick as our spokesperson for the walk smart campaign, a nationwide award winning campaign. this happy looking crab — is the walk smart mascot in ocean city. he was all over the beach town this summer — promoting safety and the use of cross walks. and up until thursday — he had no name. a number of options were submitted — but more than 4-thousand votes sealed the deal for cheswick. a name with a meaningful story. you see — he’s named after matthew cheswick — a young man killed by an impaired driver in 20-12 along coastal highway. that next year — matthew’s parents made their way back to ocean city — to help launch the original “walk smart” effort. since this campaign has come around and the word has gotten out and cheswick has been our ambassador, we’ve seen a tremendous decrease in not only the number of crashes but also the severity of those crashes. the district engineer of the state highway administration explains to us the three different components to the safety program. one is engineering which is state highway has the biggest part of. one’s enforcement done mostly by state police and ocean city police department and the third part is education and education is done by all of us. matthew’s parents were there for the name reveal — an honor for their son. it was an emotional moment — and the couple was clearly extremely thankful. a lot of good things have happened through all the tragedy. i think this tops it all particularly in the state of maryland i just want to thank all of you, i want to thank all of the citizens of maryland for this wonderful tribute and anytime we can bring awareness to pedestrian safety then that is something wonderful and a good thing and i know matthew is with us today smiling down and watching with pleasure. justina coronel, 47 abc. if you would like more helfpul tips to stay safe– you can head over to our website at 47 abc dot com to find information to walk smart, drive smart,