Welcome to Stop The Damage. Hosted by the Brain Injury Association of NJ.

A brain injury can hap­pen to any­one at any­time. The dam­age can be long lasting…broken bones, cracked skulls, lives torn apart! Often it was from some­thing that could have been pre­vented. Our goal is to stop the damage!

Categories

Archives

Archive for drivers education

May
02

No Bear Zone…Dangers of Distracted Driving!

Posted by: | Comments (0)

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!

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, Highway, Impaired Driving, Passenger Safety, prevention
Comments (0)
Apr
29

Spread the Word—You Have the Power. (No, really, you do.)

Posted by: | Comments (0)

As you’ll likely know by now, U Got Brains is hold­ing a statewide com­pe­ti­tion between nine­teen “cham­pion” schools in New Jer­sey, with each school cre­at­ing a cam­paign to pro­mote safe dri­ving. And fun­nily enough, teens in the schools are begin­ning to actu­ally take notice.

For some, it’s just a ques­tion of ask­ing another friend—“wait what’s up with all the sud­den fly­ers?” and for oth­ers, it’s the gift of a free shirt or bracelet from a cam­paign orga­nizer; but grad­u­ally, the stu­dents in the schools are start­ing to real­ize that this is a big deal— and it’s actu­ally hap­pen­ing at their school.

Adults can come in and teach stu­dents about safe dri­ving all they want. Some speeches are funny or witty, while oth­ers can be elo­quent, touch­ing, or pow­er­ful. But no mat­ter how won­der­ful their speeches are, many stu­dents just don’t lis­ten. Maybe they’ll lis­ten for the period, maybe they’ll lis­ten for a few days—but even­tu­ally, the major­ity will go back to the far eas­ier meth­ods of tex­ting out quick replies, fore­go­ing the annoy­ing seat belt, and tak­ing that ille­gal drink at parties.

How­ever, imag­ine the con­cepts of dri­ving in full con­trol becom­ing the new trend. Of stu­dents hit­ting friends over the heads (not lit­er­ally! …well, depend­ing on how close the friend is) for dri­ving idi­ot­i­cally, friends telling friends “I love you but I’d really rather not risk my life on your skills at look­ing at the road and at your phone at the same time”, upper­class­men cre­at­ing prece­dents that the under­class­men won’t dare to break in the future—essentially, keep­ing smart in and stu­pid out.

We can do this, and the U Got Brains com­pe­ti­tion is one step towards this goal, this hope. If teenagers become the ones to spread the word and tell each other exactly how stu­pid stu­pid is, then they stand the chance of actu­ally being heard and even lis­tened to by peers. We as teens have adopted plenty of strange ideas in the past—so why not adopt a life-saving one, this time, instead?

> Find out what the UGot­Brains Cham­pion School Project is and see who is participating

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, high school, Highway, Impaired Driving, prevention, Teen, texting
Comments (0)
Feb
24

Kyleigh’s Law license plate decals upheld by N.J. court

Posted by: | Comments (1)

On Tues­day, a three-judge appeals court upheld the dis­pu­ta­tious Kyleigh’s Law, part of the Grad­u­ated Driver’s License Sys­tem (GDLS) that requires new dri­vers, under age 21, to dis­play one red decal in the top, left cor­ner of both the front and rear license plates.

The Asso­ci­ated Press reported that the par­ents of two Mor­ris County teenagers filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing the law, which went into effect in May 2010, argu­ing it would unfairly tar­get young dri­vers to crim­i­nals and sex­ual preda­tors in addi­tion to law enforcement.

Read the entire story here

Find out every­thing you need to know about GDL law in New Jer­sey @ http://www.njteendriving.com/gdl

Categories : Highway, New Laws, Teen
Comments (1)
Feb
16

19 yr old is thrown from his car and killed on Garden State Parkway

Posted by: | Comments (0)

Mid­dle­sex County man, 19, is killed in Gar­den State Park­way acci­dent in Woodbridge

It is another tragic story of some­thing that could have so eas­ily been pre­vented if only this young man had been wear­ing his seat­belt. On Tues­day night, Ahmed Faraz of Par­lin lost con­trol of his car on the Gar­den State Park­way. His vehi­cle spun around and col­lided with another vehi­cle, eject­ing Ahmed onto the hood of the other car. The other car then slammed into another vehi­cle while try­ing to avoid another col­li­sion. Some who were injured were wear­ing seat­belts. Faraz was not wear­ing his seat­belt and was killed in the crash.

Some Facts

  • Between 1975 and 2000, over 135,000 lives were saved by seat belt use, and as usage increases, traf­fic fatal­i­ties decrease.
  • Despite advanced restraint sys­tems and tough leg­is­la­tion, the National High­way Traf­fic Safety Admin­is­tra­tion (NHTSA) reports 25 per­cent of Amer­i­cans still fail to buckle up.
  • Seat belt usage reduces the chance of traffic-related fatal­i­ties by 45 per­cent. Accord­ing to NHTSA, in 2006 over 15,000 lives were saved by seat belt use.
  • In most cases, wear­ing a seat belt pre­vents ejec­tion from the vehi­cle. 2006 NHTSA sta­tis­tics show 75 per­cent of dri­vers ejected dur­ing a car acci­dent were killed. Only one per­cent of them were wear­ing a seat belt.
  • Wear­ing a seat belt min­i­mizes the body’s con­tact with the inte­rior of the car result­ing in fewer injuries. Accord­ing to NHTSA, seat belt usage reduces the chance of being injured by up to 50 percent.
  • Seat belts spread the force of impact over larger parts of the body reduc­ing sever­ity of injuries. Injuries sus­tained when not wear­ing a seat belt can be up to five times greater.
  • Aver­age med­ical costs for belted dri­vers are 60 per­cent less than for unbelted drivers.
Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, Highway, New Laws, prevention
Comments (0)
Jan
31

Giving Credit to the New Law for Decline in Teen Deaths

Posted by: | Comments (0)

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 28, Road War­rior Colum­nist John Cichowski wrote a great arti­cle regard­ing the big news that teen dri­ving deaths are down 44% in 2010 and that it could be “attrib­uted to the May 1 teen dri­ving restric­tions that included an 11 p.m. cur­few, pas­sen­ger lim­its, a ban on hands-free cell­phone use, and a tiny, man­dated red bumper decal to iden­tify novice dri­vers under the state’s Grad­u­ated Dri­ver License law.”

You can read the full arti­cle HERE

Categories : Distracted Driving, Highway, New Laws, prevention
Comments (0)
Jan
31

U.S. Department of Transportation Releases Latest Video in “Faces of Distracted Driving” Series

Posted by: | Comments (0)

Fam­ily raises aware­ness of Remem­ber Alex Brown Foun­da­tion and tex­ting risks on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

by Press Releases for U.S. Depart­ment of Transportation’s (USDOT)

WASHINGTON – U.S. Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Ray LaHood (@RayLaHood) today released the lat­est video in the U.S. Depart­ment of Transportation’s (USDOT) “Faces of Dis­tracted Dri­ving” series. The new video fea­tures the Brown fam­ily, whose 17-year-old daugh­ter, Alex, was killed in a 2009 crash because she was tex­ting while dri­ving on a rural road in Well­man, Texas. The fam­ily recently appeared on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edi­tion, rais­ing aware­ness of the Remem­ber Alex Brown Foun­da­tion and the dan­gers of dis­tracted driving.

<div align=“center” style=“text-align=“center; padding-top:10px;padding-bottom:10px;”>

WATCH: “Alex Brown, 17”


Watch on YouTube

“Alex Brown wasn’t a sta­tis­tic – she was a beloved daugh­ter and a sis­ter, and her death left a hole in the heart of her fam­ily mem­bers and friends,” said Sec­re­tary LaHood. “I hope that every­one who hears the Brown fam­ily speak about their tragic loss will real­ize that no text mes­sage or phone call is worth the risk. Addi­tional media atten­tion, like ABC’s help­ing share the Browns’ story with the view­ers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edi­tion, is also vital.”

“She’s a huge part of our lives that’s just gone,” said Jeanne Brown. “But maybe we can reach one young per­son or help keep some­one else’s daugh­ter from doing this.”

“Faces of Dis­tracted Dri­ving” is a video series explor­ing the tragic con­se­quences of tex­ting and cell phone use while dri­ving. It fea­tures peo­ple from across the coun­try who have been injured or lost loved ones in dis­tracted dri­ving crashes. In 2009, nearly 5,500 peo­ple died and half a mil­lion were injured in acci­dents involv­ing a dis­tracted dri­ver. The series is part of Sec­re­tary LaHood’s effort to raise greater aware­ness about the dan­gers of dis­tracted driving.

USDOT is also encour­ag­ing oth­ers who would like to share their dis­tracted dri­ving expe­ri­ences to post videos on YouTube and email the links to: faces@distraction.gov.

The department’s cam­paign against dis­tracted dri­ving is a multi-modal effort that includes auto­mo­biles, trains, planes, and com­mer­cial vehicles.

The Fed­eral Rail­road Admin­is­tra­tion (FRA) issued a rule pro­hibit­ing rail employ­ees from using cell phones or other elec­tronic devices on the job fol­low­ing a Sep­tem­ber 2008 Metrolink crash in Chatsworth, Cal­i­for­nia that killed 25 people.

After a North­west flight crew dis­tracted by a lap­top over­shot their des­ti­na­tion by 150 miles, the Fed­eral Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) advised air car­ri­ers to cre­ate and enforce poli­cies that limit dis­trac­tions in the cock­pit and keep pilots focused on trans­port­ing pas­sen­gers safely.

The Fed­eral Motor Car­rier Safety Admin­is­tra­tion (FMCSA) issued a rule pro­hibit­ing text mes­sag­ing while oper­at­ing a com­mer­cial motor vehi­cle in Sep­tem­ber 2010. In Decem­ber 2010, FMCSA issued a pro­posal to restrict the use of cell phones by com­mer­cial dri­vers while oper­at­ing. A rule­mak­ing pro­posed by the a href=“http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/” target=“blank”>Pipeline and Haz­ardous Mate­ri­als Safety Admin­is­tra­tion (PHMSA) in Sep­tem­ber 2010 to work in con­junc­tion with the FMCSA ban would restrict the use of elec­tronic devices by dri­vers dur­ing the oper­a­tion of a motor vehi­cle con­tain­ing haz­ardous mate­ri­als. The pub­lic is invited to com­ment on the pro­posed rulemaking.

To learn more about USDOT’s efforts to stop dis­tracted dri­ving, please visit www.distraction.gov.

PLEASE WATCH & SHARE: the entire “Faces of Dis­tracted Dri­ving” series @ www.distraction.gov/faces.
“Dis­tracted Dri­ving Kills. Safe Dri­ving Starts With YOU.”

The Remem­ber Alex Brown Foun­da­tion (RAB) hon­ors Alex’s mem­ory by edu­cat­ing oth­ers about the dan­gers of tex­ting while dri­ving. Their web­site encour­ages oth­ers to share their dis­tracted dri­ving sto­ries and pledge online not to text while oper­at­ing a vehicle.

You can learn more about The Remem­ber Alex Brown Foun­da­tion at www.rememberalexbrownfoundation.org.

Remember Alex Brown - CLICK TO take the pledge to NOT text and drive

Remem­ber Alex Brown — CLICK TO take the pledge to NOT text and drive

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, high school, Highway, New Laws, prevention, Teen, texting
Comments (0)
Jan
26

Remember to Clear All Ice and Snow from Vehicles Prior to Driving

Posted by: | Comments (0)

(LOCAL/LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS) are remind­ing motorists to always remove accu­mu­lated ice and snow from their vehi­cles before trav­el­ing on New Jersey’s roadways.

Motorists who fail to clear their vehi­cles of ice and snow before dri­ving can be cited and fined under an amended law, which became effec­tive Octo­ber 20, 2010. Prior to this change, a motorist could only receive a cita­tion if fail­ure to remove ice and snow from a vehi­cle resulted in injury to oth­ers or prop­erty damage.

Fines for vio­lat­ing the new law range from $25 to $75. No motor vehi­cle points will be assessed for this offense. If fail­ure to remove ice and snow results in injury or prop­erty dam­age, motorists face fines rang­ing from $200 to $1000, while com­mer­cial motor vehi­cle dri­vers face fines rang­ing from $500 to $1,500, for each offense.

In antic­i­pa­tion of inclement weather, motorists are encour­aged to:

  • Tune up and win­ter­ize their vehi­cles, as well as check the radi­a­tor, bat­tery, antifreeze, and all other fluid levels.
  • Check tire treads and replace them if they’re unsafe.
  • Check and replace wind­shield wiper blades if the rub­ber is cracked and/or brit­tle. Be sure to also check and refill the washer fluid reservoir.
  • Main­tain at least a half a tank of gas dur­ing the win­ter to pre­vent the fuel line from freezing.

Motorists should also keep a win­ter dri­ving “safety kit” in their vehi­cles that is eas­ily acces­si­ble in the event of an emer­gency. The kit should include: an ice scraper/brush; shovel; jumper cables or bat­tery starter; warm blan­ket; sand, salt or cat lit­ter (for trac­tion in ice and snow); de-icer; safety flares/warning devices; flash­light and new bat­ter­ies; extra wind­shield washer fluid; cell phone with a charged spare bat­tery; water and non-perishable food (i.e. gra­nola or pro­tein bars); and, paper tow­els or a cloth.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion on win­ter dri­ving, as well as a vari­ety of traf­fic safety issues, motorists can visit the New Jer­sey Divi­sion of High­way Traf­fic Safety’s web site, at www.njsaferoads.com

Categories : Drive Safe, Highway, New Laws, prevention
Comments (0)
Jan
26

OH DEER: While you’re driving, a deer has just jumped out of nowhere. What now!?

Posted by: | Comments (0)

Dur­ing driver’s ed defen­sive dri­ving, the police offi­cer talked to us about how to deal with deer in the road– and every­one I know was shocked by the answer. So, I thought this would be inter­est­ing to write a post about!

Oh Deer… Did I just make a really bad pun?
Yes, I did, but it was a rele­phant one. :)

Quick Quiz: (Kind of like the ones you’d get in school, but with answers that may actu­ally prove directly use­ful in life one day, as opposed to expo­nen­tial– log­a­rith­mic con­ver­sions). While you’re dri­ving, a deer has just jumped out of nowhere (or at least, out of the trees on the side of the road) and is now right in the mid­dle of your lane and approach­ing fast.

What do you do?

  1. swerve to the side to try and avoid it
  2. slam on the breaks
  3. ease off the gas and coast right through

If you chose choice a, you’ve now put your­self at risk of crash­ing into the trees or any other obsta­cles to the right, or into oncom­ing cars in the next lane. Not pretty.

If you chose choice b, you’re prob­a­bly going off of what would be your instinc­tive reac­tion. While you may try to brake as quickly as pos­si­ble so as to avoid a col­li­sion, if the deer’s within your stop­ping dis­tance (usu­ally around 100 feet, depend­ing on the rate of travel and the weight of the car), you’re still going to slam into it.

Accord­ing to a cou­ple laws of physics and some­thing called momen­tum, such sud­den force on the breaks will cause your car to tilt for­ward slightly, hit­ting the deer in its legs. In real– life sit­u­a­tions, the deer will not mirac­u­lously stay still or fling clear of the car; rather, it will then pro­ceed to crash straight through your wind­shield and may pos­si­bly, as in one true story, land in the back seat still some­what alive after hav­ing taken out the dri­ver and the pas­sen­ger rid­ing shot­gun. Not fun.

So, as heart­less as it might sound, choice c is in fact the best choice to make if you see a deer within the length of your stop­ping dis­tance. If you ease off the gas, the car will slow down to min­i­mize the force of impact and you’ll hit the deer in its torso, fling­ing it back onto the road rather than through the wind­shield. Since you’ll be hit­ting the deer at such a dis­tance whether you hit the brakes or cruise through, it’s bet­ter to make sure that you’re not hurt as well as the poor deer.
:(

–
Jenni K.

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, Highway, prevention
Comments (0)
Jan
13

Just a moment.

Posted by: | Comments (0)

Sec­onds before impact…

Yep. Just a moment, that’s all you need to slip out that quick reply on your phone. By now, there’s even a good chance that you feel your­self so adept at tex­ting that you can punch out all your words within the space of a cou­ple sec­onds; lit­tle enough time that you can type, fin­ish, and look back up at the road while you’re dri­ving and keep your­self on course. If you’re dri­ving steadily and all you’re doing is press­ing out a quick mes­sage, your elbows or even maybe one hand still on the wheel while you con­cen­trate on your phone and per­haps look­ing up every so often to scan the road, you should be fine, right? It’s just a moment.

Unfor­tu­nately, that’s also just about enough time for your car to travel about 50, 100, 200, feet. Just those few sec­onds that your con­cen­tra­tions away from the road, and you could swerve across the cen­ter line, into the side of the road, or straight across a turn.

But some peo­ple will protest at that. Yes, there is the chance of swerv­ing but if you’re good enough at dri­ving, how much chance is there of los­ing con­trol? Maybe you’re not a teenager, you’ve been dri­ving for a while, and you can mostly keep con­trol of the wheel while you text. Or, per­haps you are still 16, 17, 18, 19, but you’re good enough to keep con­trol. Well, keep con­trol? Not all the time, but, there is the chance. Be pre­pared for any sud­den obsta­cles in the road like cars run­ning the stop sign or red light, con­fused ani­mals, or pedes­tri­ans? Not likely, at all. But that’s just how long it takes.

Sure, you need to reply to a text. Or you’re in a rush and you need to notify some­one out there about some­thing. Or, maybe, your phone is as much a part of you as your hand, and you just can’t keep off of it. Well then please, stop off the road. It’s just not worth the dras­tic and likely con­se­quences tak­ing your con­cen­tra­tion off the road can eas­ily result in. It’s actu­ally a true fact that thou­sands die every year from phone-related car crashes. And they’re not very pretty deaths at all.

Want proof? Check out www.ugotbrains.com/too-true-texting.htm for actual pic­tures of a texting-related acci­dent. If you don’t have a strong stom­ach, I wouldn’t look at the graphic labeled pic­tures, though. Look­ing at pic­tures of two pieces of a guy and his entrails spilled out onto the road can def­i­nitely unset­tle plenty of people.

~Jenni K.

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, Highway, Other, Teen, texting
Comments (0)
Mar
26

Kyleigh’s Law, Graduated Driver License (GDL) and Decal Information

Posted by: | Comments (22)

GDL changes effec­tive May 1, 2010

“Under­stand­ing the Changes to the New GDL”

A press conference/webinar will take place on April 14 at 9 a.m.
at Hun­ter­don Cen­tral Regional High School.
It will be broad­cast live online and will fea­ture a Q&A session.

It will be hosted by
Pam Fis­cher, the direc­tor of the NJ Divi­sion of High­way Traf­fic Safety,
and Act­ing Motor Vehi­cle Com­mis­sion Admin­is­tra­tor Ray Mar­tinez.
THIS IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENT JOURNALISTS
For all the info CLICK HERE.

All GDL hold­ers must dis­play decals on their vehi­cle when behind the wheel.

Begin­ning on May 1, 2010, the fol­low­ing changes go into effect:

Changes:

  • The name of the provisional(GDL) license will change to “probationary”.
  • The cur­few will become 11:01 p.m. to 5 a.m.
  • All GDL hold­ers must dis­play a decal on their vehicle.
  • A GDL holder can only trans­port ONE pas­sen­ger, unless a parent/guardian is in the car, or if the pas­sen­gers are the chil­dren of the teen driver.
  • Every­one in the car must wear safety belts.
  • GDL hold­ers may not use a cell phone or other wire­less elec­tronic device.
  • GDL hold­ers may not plea bar­gain point car­ry­ing offenses.



GDL Hold­ers Must Know:

What do I need to know about the new decals?

The decals must be dis­played on the car’s front and rear license plates when a GDL holder is driving.

The decals will be:

  • Fixed with a Vel­cro sys­tem to allow for its removal when the GDL holder is not driving
  • Reflec­tor­ized so that it can be seen at night
  • $4/pair at MVC offices

The penalty for not dis­play­ing a decal is a $100 fine (no penalty points). This is the same penalty for all other GDL violations.


I got my GDL license this Jan­u­ary before these changes and the decals became the law. Do I have to fol­low these new rules?

Every­one who holds a per­mit or pro­vi­sional (restricted) GDL license will have to fol­low the new changes. These changes begin on May 1, 2010.

Categories : Highway, New Laws, Teen
Comments (22)

Recent Posts

Featured Resources

Tags

baseball bat ban behind the wheel training Brain Injury Concussion controversy Crash decals defensive driving distracted driving driver license drivers ed drivers education driving laws driving permit test driving restriction driving safety driving safety technology driving test GDL GDL laws graduated driver license graphic content Helmet Kyleighs Law new jersey motor vehicle new jersey seatbelts nj driving nj law nj seatbelt law pedestrian practice permit prevention provisional license safety seatbelt seatbelts shared responsibility shock value softball Sports TBI teacher resources teen driver texting