Be safe, not sorry for next 101 days Published May 24, 2010 By Staff Sgt. Joel Mease 501st Combat Support Wing Public Affairs RAF ALCONBURY, United Kingdom -- The 101 Critical Days of Summer starts Air Force-wide during the Memorial Day weekend and ends Labor Day weekend. The program is designed to highlight a critical time for the Air Force to focus on safety. During this time the Air Force asks Airmen to take a renewed effort in suicide prevention, motorcycle awareness, drunk driving, being good wingmen and any many other safety items that need to be considered during the summer months, said Master Sgt. Robert Shover, who works at the 501st Combat Support Wing Safety Office. It's no mistake the Air Force picked the summer months as the time to re-emphasize safety. "It's during these months the Air Force has the most mishaps and fatalities," Sgt. Shover said. "So we ask Airmen to be more safety conscious to help reduce those statistics." One reason the summer months are more prone to safety-related incidents, is those months have the majority of our personnel being more active, said Bill Morrow, 501st CSW Safety chief. "During the summer we have people (moving), getting out their motorcycles and going outside more often," Mr. Morrow said. Because Airmen are doing these activities more often in the summer than other months, they get a bit ahead of themselves and do not think it through, Mr. Morrow said. "Sometimes we take out our motorcycles and forget that we have road rust from not driving for months, or we will start a BBQ and get impatient with the coals and pour more lighter fluid on it," he said. "Bottom line it's a lot safer if we move back into these things slowly." While this program focuses only on safety during these 101 days, it's no excuse to not think out safety the rest of the 264 days. "It's all comes down to thinking before you act," Sgt. Shover said. "Some things might be out of your control but most incidents can be prevented by thinking it out ahead of time."