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75 Martine Avenue, Fanwood, NJ 07023 - 908/322-7773 FAX - 908-322-2200 or 908-889-6359 Safety Wings | Tony Parenti , Editor MEETING NOTICES: Next Regular Business Meeting: The Next Regular Business Meeting is WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2006, 10:00 AM at the Convention Center in Atlantic City. There will be the usual prizes and MVC Chief Sharon Harrington will be the featured speaker. After the meeting we are invited to tour the Police/Security Expo as guests of the NJ State Association of Chiefs of Police. Board Of Directors: The next meeting is at the call of the President.  PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: I would like to thank the membership for their overwhelming support for the by-law revisions. The task of revising by-laws is not easy and we owe a great deal of thanks to the by-law committee for their many hours of hard work and for delivering a product that will improve the way we operate. It was good to see a decent turnout at the Police Memorial Service to honor our fallen heroes and their families. Get into the spirit of the ‘101 Days of Summer’ campaign by enforcing Safety Belt and DWI laws. Make a special effort to attend the Police/Security Expo. It’s always a good time and we have good speakers on tap. I’m meeting with state legislators soon to make our position known on traffic safety issues. I’ll report more on this in the future. I wish you and your families a safe and happy summer and please don’t forget to wear your bulletproof vest and safety belts. Also, make sure everyone in your vehicle is buckled up as well. Stay safe – Bill. TIRED DRIVERS ARE A RISK: A recent government study found nearly 8 of 10 crashes or near-crashes involved driver inattention. The culprits, in no particular order, are getting directions from a GPS system, checking e-mail/sending text messages, talking on a cell phone, changing radio stations or CD, or the usual drinking, eating, grooming and talking. Researchers reviewed videos and data from sensor monitors of more than 200 drivers pinpointing examples of what keeps them from paying attention to the road. The report also included data from police reports and estimates driver inattention was a factor in about 25 percent of crashes. The project analyzed nearly 2 million miles driven and more than 43,300 hours of data. The study found that drowsy driving increased the driver's risk of a crash or near-crash by four to six times, but the authors also said drowsy driving is frequently underreported in police investigations. 
ANYONE FOR ROADKILL? The state will no longer remove dead deer carcasses from county or municipal roads so they can save $734,000. NJ currently has 3 companies to remove dead deer from roadways and transport them to landfills. Each year about 14,700 of the 21,000 dead deer (about 70 percent) the state picks up are on county and local roads. The state will continue removing dead deer from state highways. DOT Commissioner Kolluri believes removing dead deer from roadways is a ‘local function’ much like local governments repair their own potholes. According to Kolluri there are about 18 sites statewide that will accept dead deer carcasses from counties and municipalities. The politicos are saying leaving dead deer on roadways could present a health risk but health experts say other than an unpleasant odor there is no threat to public health. TOLL PLAZA DANGER: Prompted by a chain-reaction crash in 2003 that killed eight people at an Illinois toll plaza federal investigators are urging changes to reduce such crashes. They say toll current plazas are without national design standards and have become the most dangerous place on highways. Toll plaza crashes account for 38% of all crashes on New Jersey toll roads and 30% of all crashes on the Pennsylvania toll highway system. The safety board recommends that federal highway officials develop design standards to reduce the number of crashes at toll plazas. Those may include guidelines on signs, pavement markings, increased lane widths or rumble strips. Investigators also said traditional tollbooths, where drivers pay attendants or throw money into an automatic coin machine increase the danger of rear-end collisions because drivers must suddenly stop. Introducing electronic toll collections lanes, though, can make the problem worse. One key to preventing crashes at tollbooths is separating drivers who have to stop from those who don't. Drivers also need signs and lane markings that give them enough time to get into the proper lane. The Federal Highway Administration is expected to finish a study on practices for toll plazas this summer. A NJ Turnpike Authority spokesperson says toll plaza improvements in NJ are "ahead of the curve" citing an average of 1.8-million cars use the Turnpike and Parkway daily and average about 38 crashes, both large and small. The Authority says they are not really seeing a big problem considering the large volume on New Jersey toll roads and toll plazas crashes are not "a significant problem."  As of Week 20 there were 265 fatalities recorded on NJ roads compared to 236 during the same period in 2005, AN INCREASE OF 29 BODIES.
There were 142 Driver deaths, 46 Passengers, 65 Pedestrians, 08 Motorcycle Drivers, 01 Motorcycle Passengers, and 03 Pedacyclists. There were 265 fatalities in 249 cashes. E-Z PASS SAVED BY GOING TO GEICO: A pitch to purchase Geico Auto Insurance or to apply for a Citibank Credit Card was included in NJ E-Z Pass billing statements. This ticked Assemblyman Neil Cohen off so he called on the governor to put the brakes on the ads. He also plans to introduce legislation barring the Turnpike Authority or any other state agency from hawking E-Z Pass customers. The Gov. says he will look into the matter but in the meantime he will let it continue because it is a trial program that expires in October. They will decide at or before that time whether to renew the program. The Turnpike Authority says the program earned $20,000 from a Connecticut marketing firm and is a source of revenue that doesn't burden toll-payers. The fliers were included in the statements of 500,000 E-Z Pass drivers who receive billing by mail. The 1.3 million drivers who receive online statements did not get to see the advertisements. Other advertisers in the program include, the New York Times, Oreck, Wall Street Journal, Bose, and American Express. 
DATA ON CELL PHONE USE: According to the National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS) cell phone use while driving increased by 1% in 2005, with 6% of drivers on hand-held phones in 2005 compared to 5% in 2004. NOPUS conducts annual surveys for the National Center for Statistics and Analysis of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The 2005 rate translates to 974,000 vehicles on the road during the daytime are being driven by someone on a hand-held phone. It also means an estimated 10% of drivers on a typical day are using some type of phone, whether hand-held or hands-free. The 2005 survey also found the following: • Hand-held use increased in a number of driver categories, including female drivers (from 6% in 2004 to 8% in 2005), drivers age 16-24 (8% in 2004 to 10% in 2005), and drivers in suburban areas (4% in 2004 to 7% in 2005). • The incidence of drivers speaking with headsets on while driving also increased in 2005, from 0.4% of drivers in 2004 to 0.7% in 2005. • In the first nationwide probability-based estimate of the incidence of hand-held device manipulation, the survey found that 0.2% of drivers were dialing phones, checking PDA’s, or otherwise manipulating some hand-held device while driving in 2005. YOUNG DEATHS: Motor vehicle traffic crashes were the leading cause of death for the age group 4 through 34 in 2003. Because of the young lives consumed, motor vehicle traffic crashes ranked third overall in terms of the years of life lost, i.e., the number of remaining years that the person is expected to have lived had they not died, behind only cancer and heart diseases. ALCOTEST NEWS: The Attorney General's Office stopped the implementation of the Alcotest 7110 MKIII-C in Monmouth, Hudson, Essex, and Bergen Counties. The machine will remain in use in the other 17 counties but sentencing of the thousands of DWI cases continues to remain on hold pending a hearing on the machine’s reliability. Departments began using the Alcotest last year after a state judge in Camden County approved its use. The state supreme court appointed a special master, retired appellate judge Michael Patrick King, who scheduled hearings on the reliability of the Alcotest set to begin Sept. 18 and last until mid-October. 
ALWAYS WEAR YOUR SAFETY BELT AND BULLETPROOF VEST SUPPORT OUR TROOPS IN THE ARMED SERVICES The Next Regular Business Meeting is WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2006, 10:00 AM at the Convention Center in Atlantic City. |