ANGLETON, Texas — As it is every New Year’s Eve, on Tuesday, Dec. 31, law enforcement agencies from around Greater Houston will have extra patrols on the roads looking out for drunk drivers. But this year a mother in Angleton has been using her Christmas decorations to try to convince others to make responsible decisions on the roads.
Mindy Red has been using laminated pictures to decorate three Christmas trees on her front yard. Each picture, roughly 250 of them, is of a person who was killed at the hands of drunk or distracted drivers.
“Look at them all,” said Red. “There is life. There is personality.”
The pictures include children, brothers, men, women, a mother and child and a picture of a sonogram of twins. There is also a picture of her daughter, Michelle.
“She was killed by an impaired driver on Feb. 21, 2009, at the age of 18.”
“She had the most beautiful singing voice,” Red remembers. “She was gorgeous, she was tall. She always made a friend everywhere we went. She loved everybody.”
She was also a mother whose son, A.J., was only 2 years old when she was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver.
This year, Red launched her Angle Tree Project. People from across the country have been sending pictures of their lost loved ones to raise awareness about making the right choices on the roads.
In 2018, the Texas Department of Transportation says 398 people were killed by distracted drivers in Texas and 478 by drunk ones.
“I have learned that when you put a face to a crime it tends to make people think more. We don’t want our loved ones forgotten. We don’t want our angels forgotten. They lived, they matter, they still matter,” Red said.
Looking at her trees, Red reflected on how every single person might still be alive today if a driver made the simple decision not to get behind the wheel.
For New Year’s Eve celebrations, Houston’s METRO is offering free rides on local buses, the METRORail and METROLift services. The offer runs from Tuesday at 6 p.m. through Wednesday at 6 a.m.