Three years ago, Cullum Owings and his younger brother, Pierce, were returning to Washington and Lee University on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

They were near the end of an eight-hour drive from Atlanta, when traffic stopped and a speeding tractor-trailer rammed into the back of their Lexus on Interstate 81, a few miles south of Lexington.

Cullum, a 22-year-old senior, died before rescue workers could remove him from the crushed vehicle.

Pierce, now himself a senior, was injured but returned to W&L to continue his studies in European history.

"It's always a little tough when I pass the spot ... and I take trucks more serious, " Pierce Owings said recently before leaving to go home to Atlanta for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Today when Owings returns to campus amid a sea of red lights on the highway, he'll be hoping that travelers will be safer because of a project his parents, Steve and Susan Owings, have initiated.

They are trying to get the Sunday after Thanksgiving designated as "Drive Safer Sunday" across the nation.

"We are trying to keep other people from experiencing the tragedy we did," Pierce Owings said.

In the past couple of weeks, Owings and a few college friends have collected the signatures of nearly 700 W&L students, faculty and staff on petitions asking President Bush and Congress to designate the Sunday after Thanksgiving as Drive Safer Sunday.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has proclaimed today Drive Safer Sunday, and on Nov. 18, Sens. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., introduced a U.S. Senate resolution to so designate the day. The resolution passed unanimously.

W&L's acting President Harlan Beckley also e-mailed the university community, urging students, professors and staff to sign petitions and to drive safely during the holiday.

Drive Safer Sunday seeks to raise safety awareness and reduce deaths and injuries on the road, said Steve Owings, a financial adviser.

Owings, quoting national transportation department figures, said 43,000 people are killed in 6 million highway crashes a year.

"It's time to set aside a special day of the year for everyone on our highways and roadways to focus on driving more safely," he said.

Unlike other holidays, Owings said, "Thanksgiving is always on Thursday and a high travel time."

Before the holiday, people are traveling at different times but "they all pretty much return on Sunday ... an extremely extraordinary day for travel," he said.

The idea for Drive Safer Sunday was conceived several weeks ago when volunteers with Road Safe America were trying to find additional ways to call attention to the numbers of deaths and injuries resulting from careless and inattentive driving.

Road Safe America was organized by Steve and Susan Owings after Cullum's death. Another goal of the nonprofit organization is to bring awareness to the hazards of highway travel and provide statistics and safety tips to drivers.

"I'm so proud of them for channeling their emotions" into programs that help others, Pierce Owings said of his parents.

The Owingses are encouraging drivers to slow down during this busy weekend. Although the campaign is aimed at all drivers, Steve Owings has been working with trucking associations to encourage truckers to drive more slowly on this day.

Pierce Owings recalled that Cullum acted quickly that evening after spotting a speeding truck in his rearview mirror.

"We'd had several incidents of standstill traffic. It was dark and there was a sea of red lights," he said.

"My brother saw headlights plowing down on him and he was trying to get out of the way."

Cullum usually practiced smart driving, said Pierce Owings, who didn't see the truck behind them as Cullum attempted to pull off the left side of the road out of the truck's path.

"I was amazed that he could maneuver at all," Owings said, adding that Cullum was able to stop with enough room to avoid the vehicle in front of them.

"I walked away pretty much unscathed."

Owings said he sat, praying as rescuers tried to free his brother.

He and Cullum were not just ordinary brothers, Owings said.

"Cullum was my hero and my best friend."

Cullum, a business administration major, didn't push his younger sibling to attend the same college as he. "Cullum always was fair with me. He told me what he liked and didn't like about W&L," Owings said.

He had hoped to get a majority of the nearly 2,000 undergraduate and law school students at W&L to sign the petitions before the holiday. Those who did received packs of chewing gum with safe-driving tips written on the packages.

Hopefully, Owings said, students would leave the gum in their vehicles and see the reminders to stay alert and drive defensively when reaching for a piece of gum while on the road.

Road Safe America also plans to conduct petition drives on college campuses around the country, said Andy Bowen, a spokesman for the organization. He added that the group will also contact Virginia legislators for support.

On the Net:

www.roadsafeamerica.org