After the storms last month, I had hoped the age old adage “April showers brings May flowers” would ring true this spring. However, that does need to be the case. Temperatures are dropping and more rain is on its way this way. Although the rain forecasted for this week is not supposed to bring storms like the ones New Yorkers experienced last month, it is still important to review safety techniques for driving in the rain.

First and foremost drivers should remain alert when driving in rain. Rain and wet roadways increase driving risks by lowering driver visibility and making it more difficult to stop quickly. Additionally, drivers must always be on the lookout for debris in the roadways. Debris is especially common when heavy rain is accompanied by high winds. Motorists should always be on the lookout for downed trees and fallen power lines after a windy rain storm.

In response to the storms that wrecked havoc on New York State earlier this spring the Acting Commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation reminded New Yorkers that, "The Department of Transportation's maintenance staff will do their best to restore mobility when weather causes road closures, but it is imperative that motorists do their part by staying alert and watching for downed trees and power lines and avoiding standing water in the road As always, we will clear debris and repair and reopen our State highways as quickly as possible after spring storms."

In addition to remaining alert and keeping an eye out for debris and downed power lines, the following tips will help ensure your safety through any storms this spring and summer bring to your area.

• Don’t speed on wet roads. Drive the speed limit or slower, if need be.


• Check your windshield wiper blades and tires regularly to ensure your vehicle is equipped to properly handle the effects of inclement spring and summer weather.


• Turn your lights on when driving in the rain. This will make it easier for you to see and for oncoming traffic to see you.


• Be aware of the drivers around you. Treat a non-functioning traffic signal as a 4-way stop sign.


• Don’t attempt to drive through standing water. Many times water appears shallow enough to drive through but standing water can hide dips in the road. So, it’s best to play it safe and turn around and find a different route. Six inches of water will reach the bottom of most passenger cars; this can result in a loss of control or stalling of your vehicle.


• If your visibility becomes heavily impaired it is best to pull over onto a safe spot on the shoulder until the rain eases. Make sure to turn on your flashers once you’ve pulled onto the shoulder. This will make it easier for other drivers to see you.


• Always be aware of the vehicles around you. In addition to impairing driver visibility, high winds can make it difficult for drivers of trucks, SUVs and other large vehicles to control their vehicles.


• During a lightning storm remain in your vehicle. Your vehicle will provide better insulation and protection against a possible lighting strike than being out in the open. However, even while you’re in your car, you avoid contact with any metal surfaces that can conduct electricity

To learn more about driver training consider taking a drivers license practice course.

Labels: driver safety course, driver safety techniques, driving safey

In your dreams, you may be the greatest, most-skilled, driver on the face of the earth --- with instantaneous, robot-like reflexes to match and able to decide lightning fast whether a car should stop, slide or turn in any direction. In reality, the laws of physics dictate what will happen to aggressive drivers and their cars in a car crash.

Unfortunately, your competence as a driver in your dreams, does not transfer over into reality. You are only human, with a limited set of speeds (given enough training) and your car is a car: a heavy piece of machinery that is bound by the laws of science.

Do The Math

Imagine that an aggressive driver is traveling at 40mph (in a 30mph zone!) --- he runs a red light (which, assuming he survives, he will claim was yellow) while another driver, crossing with the right-of-way, accelerates to the speed limit.

The aggressive driver, running at 40mph is covering 58.8 feet per second. The right-of-way driver going 30mph (the speed limit) is covering 44 feet per second. Combined, they are approaching each other at a rate of 70mph, or 102.9 feet/second.

Human Reaction Time

Assuming each is an average driver, --- not the one with the robot-like reflexes mentioned above --- your reaction time is about ¾ of a second. That means that, when each car comes into the view of the other, it will take about ¾ of a second before each driver is even aware there is an emergency. In that time, the aggressive driver will travel an additional 44.1 feet and the other driver will travel an additional 33 feet before fully realizing there is a problem. Then each driver will have to assess the driving scene and make a decision on how to best avoid the collision either by braking or steering out of the way. Then they will have to put that plan into action. Assuming that the aggressive driver decides to slam on the brakes, it will take up to 1.5 additional seconds to decide what to do and fully apply the brakes. That means he will travel another 73.5 feet before his car even begins to slow.

There isn’t enough time! They are going to crash into each other!

What laws of physics will apply as they crash into one another?

Newton's Law of Motion

The first law of motion is: an object in motion stays in motion. To put it simply: a 3,000 pound car traveling at a 40mph CANNOT just stop abruptly. It will take 120 feet before the speeding behemoth comes to a complete stop. Imagine if both drivers try to stop --- and all they get is 10 mph lower than their current speeds --- lowering their approach rate to 50 mph just before the cars crash into each other.

Using an online crash calculator (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/carcr.html#cc2 --- yes, I cheated a bit!) and assuming that both cars each weigh 3000 pounds, the force of the collision would look like this:

• Weight – 6000 lbs


• Speed – 50 mph


• Crash Force – 501,779 lbs / 250 tons

I probably wouldn't call that crash a fender-bender. What's far scarier --- assume that one of the passengers is a 100-pound girl who decided that day to be “cool” and not wear a seatbelt. The force of her body flying into the dashboard is going to look like this:

• Weight – 100 lbs.


• Speed – 30 mph


• Crash Force – 3,010 lbs / 1.5 tons

A force that great is going to be fatal to her.

However you vary the speed, driving skills and car weights --- there's no denying that the laws of physics will be the one to follow in a car crash. Aggressive drivers aren't superhuman --- they are bound to the same laws of physics rules as the rest of us --- they are just a bit more impatient. The faster an aggressive driver goes, the faster he gets into inescapable jams --- the faster he also gets to the hospital.

Learn more about how to prevent aggressive driving through a 1-hour Dangers of Aggressive Driving course offered 100% online.

Labels: aggressive driver, aggressive driving, car crash, driver safety, driving skills, passenger safety

Attention all New York drivers, please give yourselves a pat on the back. Traffic fatalities in New York City fell to an all-time record low in 2009!

There were 256 traffic fatalities in New York City last year, 12 percent fewer than in 2008. Traffic fatalities are not only declining in New York City, they are declining across the state as well. New York's 2009 Highway Safety Annual Report reported a 46 percent decline in traffic fatalities over a 10 year period. In 1998, there were 2,263 traffic fatalities recorded in New York State. By 2008, that number had fallen to 1,224. Let's see how New York compares to the rest of the U.S.

Across the nation, traffic fatalities are declining as well. In March, the U.S. DOT announced that the number of reported traffic fatalities at the end of 2009 were the lowest they had been since 1954. It also marked a decline in traffic fatalities for the 15th straight quarter. The preliminary statistics for 2009 portray an 8.99 percent decrease over 2008. In actual numbers, there were 33,963 traffic fatalities counted in 2009 compared to 37,261 in 2008.

Nationwide, the decline in traffic fatalities can be partially attributed to the economy. In 2009, drivers were driving much less than they had been in previous years. As economic conditions improve drivers will begin to drive more and it may be difficult to sustain these levels of traffic fatalities. However, it isn't impossible to maintain. If drivers remain focused with their eyes on the road, their hands on the wheel, and their cell phones put away these levels will be more easily maintained. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, approximately 6,000 deaths in 2008 resulted from crashes caused by a distracted driver.

In New York City, the 35 percent decrease in traffic fatalities can also be attributed to the safety advances made in numerous categories: vehicle drivers and passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists and seniors. As a demographic, seniors are most vulnerable to traffic fatalities. The DOT plans to reduce traffic fatalities 50 percent by 2030. To accomplish this, 2010 will bring the launch of new safety initiatives and the expansion of current ones. Some examples of the initiatives for 2010 include: tripling the number of reduced-speed zones around school, launching new anti-drunk-driving and anti-speeding campaigns, and continued working to engineer safer streets for children, seniors and anyone else using the city streets.

Summer is approaching quickly which means that more and more people will be hitting the highways for summer vacation road trips. Even though traffic fatalities are declining its important that drivers never feel complacent behind the wheel. Highways are still dangerous places and drivers should always beware of possible hazards. A NY defensive driving course can be helpful to improve your basic driver knowledge, so truly understand defensive driving concepts and roadway survival techniques.

Labels: driver safety, new york defensive driving, traffic safety

New York City has become increasing safe for drivers in recent years. Only 256 traffic related deaths occurred in 2009, the lowest in city history. Approximately 10 percent of these deaths were caused by drunk drivers. While, lower than the national average of 32 percent, New York City officials find these statistics unacceptable.

New York City Department of Transportation knew that improving these statistics would take a different approach, than the drinking and driving campaign that had been running almost continuously since it was developed in 1983. This new program celebrates the cities designated drivers. Janette Sadik-Kahn, NYCDOT commissioner, explained that there are over 100,000 designated drivers in NYC. Taxi and livery car drives, bus drivers and train operators help to comprise this total. In spite of the abundance of designated drivers, "People will still drink and drive," explained Sadik-Kahn. "So, what we are trying to do is to really focus on celebrating each and every designated driver in the city."

The first-segment of the campaign is aimed at the demographic most likely to get behind the wheel impaired, males between 21 and 39 years of age. The major challenge in getting the message across is that, this particular demographic is also least likely to listen to or respond to a public service announcement. The slogan "You the Man" was derived to reward or celebrate the designated driver as opposed to punishing the drunk the driver. The NYCDOT said test results were positive for the slogan across racial and socioeconomic lines.

The Director of Strategic Communication, Dani Simons wanted to create a program that removed the barrier for people to drink and drive. Simons determined some of the reasons people drink and drive in New York City are to avoid waiting an hour a bus, the changes in weekend subway services, and to prevent walking around a possibly dangerous neighborhood late at night. One campaign objective was to find a way to combat these reasons. "You the Mans" find a ride feature does exactly that. The feature, enables anyone with a smart phone to type in their zip code and find the number of the nearest car service.

They took a different approach in the advertising for the campaign as well. They aligned drink and driving with embarrassing, regrettable drunken behavior. For example, many drivers can't relate to the consequences of drinking and driving. But, they can relate to waking up in the morning and being embarrassed over a drunken phone call or text message they sent. Who wouldn't want to have a sober friend around who could be the designated phone monitor? He would be the hero, or "the man" simply by preventing an action that would later be regrettable. The designated driver is viewed the same way. He's "the man" because he is preventing behavior that would be later be embarrassing and regrettable (never mind dangerous and possibly life-altering).

There is a Facebook page set up for the campaign, as well as a website (http://youthemannyc.org/) video portraying the designated driver as the hero of a successful night out. They are also running internet ads on Evite, Club Planet and Google searches for bars and clubs. Additionally, there are ads running on local radio stations Thursday through Saturday from 5-9pm.

The campaign kicked off Super Bowl Weekend. One of the sponsors of the campaign is Heineken. Heineken teamed up with the NYCDOT to promote the campaign by designing coasters and distributing them to bars. One side of the coaster read, "You the Man" the other side read, "Be the man. Be the designated driver." This is an extremely targeted campaign to reach the targeted demographic where they live. The entire campaign is being executed with a budget of less than $1 million.

Labels: driver safety, drunk driving, traffic safety

The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) released "New York City"s Green Dividend," a report enumerating the benefits of mass transit use and walking for New York City's economy and environment. CEO's for Cities, a national, non-profit organization of urban leaders, completed the report.

The report concluded that New Yorkers save $19 billion annually by driving less than other Americans. The report also states that $16 billion of that stays in the local economy. According to the NYCDOT commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, "Nineteen billion dollars is...a sustainable economic model for New York City that we can't take for granted. This report gives us our first look at the bottom-line benefit of mass transit and also reminds us what we stand to lose if we don't keep up our investment.

The report also found that only one-third of New Yorkers commute to work in their vehicles. This is the smallest percentage of any large-sized city in the nation. Additionally, New Yorkers own fewer cars per capita in caparison with the average American city. In fact, an increase of 4.5 million cars across the five boroughs would be needed to match the car ownership of the average American city. In order to accommodate those cars, the city would need to construct a parking lot larger than the island of Manhattan.

CEO's for Cities determined the $19 billion in annual savings by employing a simple mathematic equation. Estimated miles driven by New Yorkers (9 miles per day) X the national average cost of operating a vehicle (40 cents per mile). Then, they compared the total (how much New Yorkers spend on driving per capita) with the national average. They concluded the savings was $19 billion each year.

However, this may be a conservative answer. In study calculated the average VMT rates in New York City using the average daily distance driven across the city's entire metropolitan region. For example, it's not unreasonable to assume that city-based drivers use their cars less frequently and drive short distances than most Suffolk county residents. If that's the case, than the actual miles her day driven her city resident is less than 9 miles. Additionally, the cost of driving in New York City is higher than the national average. High costs of parking, insurance and gas also help increase the savings for New Yorkers.

In addition to illustrating the benefits of mass transit on New York City's economy and environment, the report highlights the need for continuing to develop and expand New York City's mass transit system. As the population of New York City continues to increase, increasing mass transit capacity and developing new transportation options will be imperative.

This report was released at a critical time. Currently, the effectiveness and growth of New York's mass transit system is in jeopardy. The MTA (which runs Manhattans subway and bus systems) is currently facing the largest service and budget cuts since the 1970s. In addition to the MTA's budget crisis, the federal government's transportation funding program expired in 2009. For the last 6 months it has been continued by a series of short term extensions. "Getting the economic development folks behind these policy arguments would greatly strengthen the green transportation coalition," said Julia Klaiber, director of external affairs for CEO's for Cities.

Whether you take the train, ride the bus, walk or bike to work you are helping to contribute to the avoidance of 23 million tons of carbon emissions each year by New Yorkers who use mass transit or other sustainable means of transportation.