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!

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Archive for New Laws

Jan
03

New Year Brings Bad News For NJ Roads

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After years of improv­ing crash sta­tis­tics, 2011 saw an increase in the num­ber of peo­ple killed on New Jersey’s road­ways. Accord­ing to State Police, seat­belt usage and dis­tracted dri­ving are two fac­tors which con­tribute to crashes and fatal­i­ties on our road­ways. Pedes­trian fatal­i­ties con­tinue to be an issue in New Jer­sey. Cer­tain areas across the state have higher rates for fatal­i­ties. Read more and check out how safe your com­mu­nity is. Click here

Categories : crash, Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, DUI, DWI, high school, Highway, Impaired Driving, New Laws, Passenger Safety, Seatbelt
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Jul
01

Happy Fourth of July!!

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More peo­ple trav­el­ing and more par­ties to attend means more risk for mak­ing unsafe deci­sions. Don’t let your teens become a sta­tis­tic over the holiday!

In 2009, more than 3,000 youth died as a result of a motor vehi­cle crash and 350,000 were injured.
(Source: NHTSA)

Par­ents, what are your teens doing for the Fourth of July?
Be sure to:

  • Edu­cate your teens about the safety of using seat belts
  • Re-enforce GDL Laws
  • Mon­i­tor your teens behav­ior and ask questions
  • Encour­age your teens to have a voice when they feel they are in unsafe situations

Know the Grad­u­ated dri­ver lices­ning laws (GDL’s):
Know the laws and rein­force them with your teens that fol­low­ing the laws could save their lives.

Seat belt facts:
Check out sta­tis­tics and information.

Parent-teen Con­tracts:
Develop a pos­i­tive rela­tion­ship with your teen by talk­ing about the dri­vnig rules and hav­ing them com­mit by sign­ing a con­tract. The con­tracts will give you the oppor­tu­nity set the stan­dards and your teens will under­stand that dri­ving is a priv­i­lege that should be earned.

Orig­i­nally appeared on Under Your Influ­ence.

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, DUI, DWI, high school, Highway, Impaired Driving, New Laws, Other, Passenger Safety, Teen
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Apr
13

Don’t Barrel Through Work Zones. Drive Smart.

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Bar­rel Bob used cour­tesy of the Mis­souri Dept. of Trans­porta­tion. www.modot.org

The spring and sum­mer of 2011 will bring road and bridge con­struc­tion back to our highways.

Buckle Up! – Every trip, every time – safety belts save lives.

Stay Alert! – Ded­i­cate your full atten­tion to the roadway.

Fol­low Signs! – They’ll guide you through work zones safely.

Expect the Unex­pected! – Watch for flag­gers, work­ers and equipment.

Pay Atten­tion! – Turn the radio down and don’t use your cel­lu­lar phone.

Be Patient! – Remem­ber work­ers are improv­ing the road for future travels.

Don’t Speed!– Fol­low posted lim­its and adjust for weather conditions.

Don’t Drink and Drive! – Impair­ment of any kind is unacceptable.

Be Nice! – Merge as directed, don’t tail­gate and don’t change lanes in a work zone

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, Highway, New Laws, Passenger Safety
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Mar
24

Do You Have the Right Car Seat for Your Child’s Age and Size? Do Your Friends?

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Car Seat Rec­om­men­da­tions for Children

  • Select a car seat based on your child’s age and size, and choose a seat that fits in
    your vehi­cle and use it every time.
  • Always refer to your spe­cific car seat manufacturer’s instruc­tions; read the vehi­cle
    owner’s man­ual on how to install the car seat using the
    seat belt or LATCH sys­tem; and check height and weight limits.
  • To max­i­mize safety, keep your child in the car seat for as long as pos­si­ble, as long as the child fits within the manufacturer’s height and weight requirements.
  • Keep your child in the back seat at least through age 12.

Birth – 12 months

Your child under age 1 should always ride in a rear-facing car seat.
There are dif­fer­ent types of rear-facing car seats: Infant-only seats can only be used rear-facing. Con­vert­ible and 3-in-1 car seats typ­i­cally have higher height and weight lim­its for the rear-facing posi­tion, allow­ing you to keep your child rear-facing for a longer period of time.

1 – 3 years

Keep your child rear-facing as long as pos­si­ble. It’s the best way to keep him or her safe. Your child should remain in a rear-facing car seat until he or she reaches the top height or weight limit allowed by your car seat’s man­u­fac­turer. Once your child out­grows the rear-facing car seat, your child is ready to travel in a forward-facing car seat with a harness.

4 – 7 years

Keep your child in a forward-facing car seat with a har­ness until he or she reaches the top height or weight limit allowed by your car seat’s man­u­fac­turer. Once your child out­grows the forward-facing car seat with a har­ness, it’s time to travel in a booster seat, but still in the back seat.

8 – 12 years

Keep your child in a booster seat until he or she is big enough to fit in a seat belt prop­erly. For a seat belt to fit prop­erly the lap belt must lie snugly across the upper thighs, not the stom­ach. The shoul­der belt should lie snug across the shoul­der and chest and not cross the neck or face.

Remem­ber: your child should still ride in the back seat because it’s safer there.

DESCRIPTION (RESTRAINT TYPE)

A REAR-FACING CAR SEAT is the best seat for your young child to use. It has a har­ness and in a crash, cra­dles and moves with your child to reduce the stress to the child’s frag­ile neck and spinal cord.

A FORWARD-FACING CAR SEAT has a har­ness and tether that lim­its your child’s for­ward move­ment dur­ing a crash.

A BOOSTER SEAT posi­tions the seat belt so that it fits prop­erly over the stronger parts of your child’s body.

A SEAT BELT should lie across the upper thighs and be snug across the shoul­der and chest to restrain the child safely in a crash. It should not rest on the stom­ach area or across the neck.

Download the 4 Steps Flyer

Categories : Drive Safe, Highway, New Laws, Other, Passenger Safety, prevention, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
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Mar
16

Nah, it’s Alright. My Cell has Bluetooth.

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And what’s so wrong about that, if you’re dri­ving? You’re not hold­ing the phone, after all…

If you’ve taken a Driver’s Ed class any­time in your life (within the past cou­ple years that hands-free call­ing has actu­ally been around, at least) you’d know by now some­thing that a hor­ri­fy­ing num­ber of peo­ple don’t—hands-free phones are like a frac­tion of a per­cent less risky than hand-held to use while driving.

That makes no sense.

Yeah, that was the first thought that went through a lot of peo­ples’ brains when this rev­o­lu­tion­ary idea was first intro­duced. Why? Isn’t the big prob­lem with cell phones that you have to take your hands off the wheel to use them, and look down at the screen to text?

Well, that’s some of the prob­lem. It’s never good to drive with one hand, no mat­ter how pro you may be at doing so on a bike. How­ever, that’s not all of it. When you’re dri­ving along and talk­ing over the wire to some­one, your atten­tion strays from where it should be—the road—to the per­son that you’re talk­ing to. And unlike the per­son sit­ting next to you, the per­son on the other end of the con­nec­tion won’t know if you’re mak­ing a tricky turn or maneu­ver­ing through cars or any­thing. They won’t quiet down for you when you need to con­cen­trate, and you can’t sud­denly shut up at times to con­cen­trate or you’ll risk offense.

Imag­ine the sce­nario like this: you’re play­ing video games (COD, Black Ops, Poke­mon, what­ever) and you’re all intent on your game, when some­one decides to start talk­ing to you from the side. You’re not tak­ing your eyes or hands off the game—but your mind is, the moment you start talk­ing, and then, unless you’re a real pro gamer—GAME OVER.

Except, real life isn’t a game. So, don’t treat it as one—the cold, harsh, real­ity, is, there is no “back” or “reset” but­ton. So, treat the one life you have carefully—even more care­fully than the last life you’re on two lev­els from beat­ing a game after half a year’s worth of intense work.

Categories : Distracted Driving, Highway, Impaired Driving, New Laws, prevention
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Mar
08

Kyleigh’s Law: Helpful, Annoyance, or… Hazard?

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Well, it seems to be a rather sim­ple law impos­ing even more restric­tions on the already greatly-oppressed (in the opin­ions of the teenagers) teenagers. So, of course it sprung up a huge con­tro­versy that’s pos­si­bly threat­en­ing a ride straight up to the Supreme Court.

In case you’ve been liv­ing under a rock or some­where other than the amaz­ing state of New Jer­sey lately, you may be won­der­ing what this law is all about, so here’s a brief (and yet sur­pris­ingly com­pre­hen­sive) expla­na­tion. Young adult dri­vers, dri­vers under 21, must stick red decal stick­ers onto their license plates while they drive to alert other dri­vers that they are rel­a­tively (or greatly) inex­pe­ri­enced and young.

For typ­i­cal teenagers, I’m sure the first thing that comes to mind is that it’d be such a pain to stick those stick­ers on and off when­ever you’re dri­ving. Oh, and there’s all that annoy­ing sticky stuff that always gets left behind when you peel stick­ers off and that you’re usu­ally too lazy to scrape off (unless you’re an OCD-type per­son like me). Your next thought may very like be the same one that has con­cerned moth­ers Donna Traut­mann and Jayneann Stru­ble into actu­ally suing the state of New Jer­sey and its gov­er­nor for pass­ing this law that it infringes on pri­vacy rights. (If you’re an AP Gov stu­dent or some­thing, you may also be enraged over the pos­si­ble vio­la­tion of the Fed­eral Driver’s Pri­vacy Pro­tec­tion Act as well as the Fourth Amend­ment of the actual Con­sti­tu­tion under the cat­e­gory unrea­son­able searches and seizures’.)

Well, as many peo­ple already know, the law was upheld at the appeal and deemed con­sti­tu­tional. The Appel­late panel declared that while the pri­vacy acts list of restricted per­sonal infor­ma­tion is long and (aptly– termed) exhaus­tive, it never men­tions age or age group, and that rather than dis­clos­ing pri­vate infor­ma­tion about the indi­vid­ual, it sim­ply groups him or her into a gen­eral pop­u­la­tion group.

Yeah, but it’s still annoy­ing, know­ing that other peo­ple will see those decals and auto­mat­i­cally form a bias against you other dri­vers, the police, and… Rapists? Pos­si­bly. Inves­ti­ga­tion is under­way in order to affirm whether or not the rel­a­tively new law is more of a haz­ard than a safety pre­cau­tion for young dri­vers, and in the mean­time, the two moms are not giv­ing up. I won­der if this really will make it to the Supreme Court one day? Whether or not, it’s cer­tainly an inter­est­ing case to follow!

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, high school, Highway, New Laws, Teen
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Feb
24

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

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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
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Feb
17

Well, Just at the Stoplight!

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That’s exactly the response a senior friend gave to me when I asked her if she ever texted while dri­ving. It was actu­ally quite amus­ing see­ing the divide that sin­gle answer brought: the nods of agree­ment from the seniors, and the shocked, almost hor­ri­fied, faces of the sopho­mores– the sopho­mores, who had just fin­ished Dri­vers Ed. (Just to clar­ify, Dri­vers Edu­ca­tion is not a class known for teach­ing one how to drive, but rather for teach­ing one to be scared of driving.)

After a few years, or maybe even just a few months, it becomes com­mon to for­get the hor­rors we all dis­cov­ered dur­ing our Dri­vers Ed period or per­haps, as is likely in many cases, we’ve sim­ply pushed it to the back of our minds with the pop­u­lar teenage mind­set of irdc and who really does.

It’s easy to for­get cau­tion espe­cially when encour­aged by even the mere pres­ence of friends. But, truth be told, isn’t it funny how all of those nasty, cars-rolling-over-fires-exploding-people-being-ripped-apart crashes seemed to almost always hap­pen at those few moments in which peo­ple aren’t pay­ing atten­tion? Such as, those few sec­onds when you’re texting?

Let’s employ a cer­tain type of logic here. The amount of time that you’re tex­ting, or the amount of time that you’re twist­ing around to talk to some­one in the back seat, or the amount of that you’re watch­ing with fas­ci­na­tion at the amaz­ing lit­tle tri­an­gle on your wind­shield that the wipers just can’t seem to touch; it’s not very long, is it? Just a few sec­onds. At the same time, the per­cent­age of crashes that hap­pen while peo­ple are dis­tracted and not pay­ing as much atten­tion on the road as they should is scar­ily high. Well over 50%, which basi­cally means, that’s a ton of crashes. So!

That equals a really big chance that you’re going to crash dur­ing those six sec­onds. Sorry.

So, now, please don’t text and drive? Thank you.

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, high school, Highway, New Laws, prevention, Teen, texting
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Feb
16

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

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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
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Jan
31

Giving Credit to the New Law for Decline in Teen Deaths

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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
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