No Bear Zone…Dangers of Distracted Driving!

Turns out NJ dri­vers have another dis­trac­tion to con­tend with while driving…bears!

The “Exit 8” Bear, a black bear that was spot­ted in a tree near the exit, had to be tran­quil­ized and removed because dri­vers on the turn­pike were dis­tracted by the sight.

Dis­tracted dri­ving is trend that poses a grow­ing dan­ger.  Nearly 5,500 peo­ple died in 2009 in crashes involv­ing a dis­tracted dri­ver and almost 450,000 were injured.  Dri­vers under the age of 20 make up the age group with the great­est pro­por­tion of dis­tracted dri­vers.  Do you want to help put an end to this type of behav­ior?  Here’s your chance:

What is Dis­tracted Driving?

There are three main types of dis­trac­tion:

• Visual – tak­ing your eyes off the road
• Man­ual – tak­ing your hands off the wheel
• Cog­ni­tive – tak­ing your mind off what you’re doing

Add bear gaz­ing to the fol­low­ing list of dri­ving dis­trac­tions to avoid:

• Tun­ing a radio, CD player or ipod
• Apply­ing makeup or per­sonal grooming
• Read­ing
• Tend­ing to chil­dren or pets
• Eat­ing and drinking
• Pro­gram­ming a GPS
• Using a cell phone

Your pri­mary respon­si­bil­ity as a dri­ver is to oper­ate your vehi­cle safely! Com­mon sense and per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity are a major part of the solu­tion.  It’s up to each and every per­son to make sure they “Put it Down” and pay atten­tion to the road.  The risks are sim­ply too high!