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ÊMEETING NOTICES: Board Of Directors: The next meeting is at the call of the president.
Next RegularBusiness CONDOLENCES: With deep regret and sympathy we announce the passing of Billie Fastiggi, wife of Pompton Lakes Retired Lt. Bob Fastiggi who served as First Vice President with the NJPTOA and Rockaway Township Retired Deputy Chief John Daley who served as Vice President in Region 3. Our thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to the families of the deceased and we wish Billie and John be granted eternal rest. SPEED KILLS: New York is having a problem on city streets where speeding motorists are killing pedestrians at alarming rates. Officials in New York are seriously
considering using photo radar to combat the problem. Once the story hit the press, I began to get calls from various departments on using photo radar for speed detection. The New Jersey legislature banned use of
photo radar in our state on September 4, 1992, NJS 39:4-103.1 The statute says: "Notwithstanding any law, rule or regulation to the contrary, a law enforcement officer or agency shall not use photo radar to
enforce the provisions of Chapter 4 of Title 39 of the Revised Statutes. Photo radar means "a device used primarily for speed limit enforcement substantially consisting of a radar unit linked to a camera,
which automatically produces a photograph of a vehicle traveling at a speed in excess of the legal limit." Please be guided accordingly and don't forget to remind your politicians! BLUE EMERGENCY LIGHTING: NJAC 13:24-8 was amended to include blue lights on emergency vehicles. Part of the text says, "There is no limit as to the number of red lights, or combination of red and blue emergency lights which may be mounted on an authorized emergency vehicle." Our Association always had a strong position on emergency lighting, striving for uniformity and keeping the lights the least confusing as possible for the motoring public. Through the years, we managed to retain all red for emergency vehicles. As time went on more and more departments favored blue lights so we changed our position to include blue but only, for uniformity sake, if it is confined to the right side of the roof rack. DMV agreed but did not include it in the regulation. Rather, the regulation permits blue to be on the right, center, or left side. The lack of uniformity is likely to confuse the motoring public and can become a real threat to the police officer's safety. Inasmuch as the regulators didn't listen, maybe the legislature will. As of June 28, 2001, there were 285 fatalities recorded on NJ roads compared to 309 during the same period in 2000, A DECREASE OF 24 BODIES.
During this period, there were 166-driver deaths, 61-passengers, 45-pedestrians, 07-motorcycle drivers, 00-motorcycle passenger, and 05-pedacyclists. There were 284 fatalities in 267 crashes. Return to the Top CHANGE AT AAA: Jen Schnieder resigned her position with AAA in Florham Park and Michelle Mount replaced her as Public Affairs Manager. We wish Jen well in whatever she decides to do in the future and we look forward to working with Michelle. TRAFFIC ENGINEERING FOR POLICE OFFICERS COURSE: The Basic Engineering For Police Course is being offered by Rutgers University Center for Governmental Services beginning Thursday September 6 and concluding on November 12, 2001. All classes are between 6:45 and 9:45 PM. Tuition is $503.00, half of which may be reimbursed by your local AAA Club. For further information EEZ ON DOWN: The EZ Pass guys decided too many motorists are driving through tollbooths at more than 5 mph and causing crashes or jeopardizing toll taker's safety. Maybe the toll takers should try crossing in front of the booths where they are in approaching driver's view as opposed to the back of the booth as too many of them do. They are not saying just how many or describing the type of crashes. While I wait in line to go through EZ Pass at 5 mph I watch, with much envy, motorists tossing coins in a basket the same as I did before I was conned into EZ Pass. The coin throwers go through like runners reaching for water in a marathon race. But the EZ Pass guys doesn't seem to care about the speeding coin throwers and there is no mention of coin flipping crash experience. This makes me wonder why the fast moving basket tossers don't crash the tollbooths unless the booths are part of the Intelligent Highway System and they can distinguish the difference between EZ Pass and Exact Change and Token users. The EZ Pass guys do permit us to speed through the pearly booths two times with warnings before losing our privilege for 60 days on the third offense. Wow, we get 2 free opportunities to crash before losing the privilege. This is real comforting. The EZ Pass guys won't tell us the actual speed we can go through the booths without being clobbered. Maybe they really don't want us to go through at 5 mph because it causes congestion and rear-end collisions. On the other hand, motorists complain that when they do go through at 5 mph they sometimes get double billed - sneaky guys huh? Maybe the EZ Pass guys should visit a tollbooth operation and they might see motorists frantically jockeying for the proper lane to be in for their payment method. Even coming out of the tollbooth can be treacherous when we once again must jockey for lanes. This is where the crashes seem to occur and the solution is as simple as instituting uniform lane designation for the various types of payments. If the EZ Pass guys want electronic toll collection they should do it right by tearing down the tollbooths and have the transponder readers at the points of entry and exit -- no booths, just the readers. By the way, are they using photo-radar to catch speeders? REMEMBER: NEXT MEETING IS ON SEPTEMBER 5, 2001 AT THE SOMERVILLE ELKS CLUB, ROUTE 28, BRIDGEWATER, NJ SUMMERTIME IS GREAT - ENJOY IT BY |
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