Gloucester Police to Crack Down on Texting and Driving

The Gloucester Township Police Department received a $5,000 grant to participate in the statewide 2015 “UDrive, UText, UPay” distracted driving enforcement campaign between April 1-21.

The grant, which was awarded by the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety, will be used to conduct high visibility patrols targeting motorist who engage in dangerous distracted driving behaviors such as talking on hand held cell phones and sending text messages while driving.

This statewide campaign is part of a national effort to raise awareness to the dangers of distracted driving. April has also been designated as National Distracted Driver awareness month.

The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness about anti-texting laws through advertising. It is funded by an $8.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“Access to crash videos has allowed us to better understand the moments leading up to a motor vehicle impact in a way that was previously impossible,”AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety President Peter Kissinger said. “The in-depth analysis provides indisputable evidence that teen drivers are distracted in a much greater percentage of crashes than we previously realized.”

Researchers analyzed the six seconds leading up to a moderate or severe crash in nearly 1,700 videos using in-vehicle event recorders, according to AAA.

They concluded that 58 percent of teen drivers were distracted in some way, 14 times higher than previously thought. This includes 89 percent of road departure crashes and 76 percent of rear-end crashes.

The most common distractions are:

• interacting with other passengers (15 percent of crashes);
• cell phone use (12 percent of crashes; those using cell phones had their eyes on their phones for 4.1 of the final six seconds of a crash);
• looking at something in the car (10 percent);
• looking at something outside the car (9 percent);
• singing or moving to music (8 percent);
• grooming (6 percent); and
• reaching for an object (6 percent)

Reaction time related to cell phone use was also down, as teens failed to react more than half the time before a crash after using a cell phone, according to the study. This means they didn’t try to avoid the crash or use their brakes.

“Young drivers cannot draw upon previous experience to manage unsafe conditions,” AAA CEO Bob Darbelnet said.

New Jersey is one of 33 states that outlaw cell phone use by teen drivers and one of 18 that allows a new driver to have just one non-family member in the car for the first six months of driving, per AAA recommendations.