Skip to main content

New Jersey announces new initiative to combat distracted driving

Responding to an eight percent spike in New Jersey traffic fatalities in 2016, largely attributable to increasing distracted driving, Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino and the Division of Highway Traffic Safety are announcing a new initiative to provide state residents with a method to report dangerous drivers in order to protect motorists and pedestrians. The state’s #77 alert system, previously used for reporting aggressive driving, will now be used to report all forms of dangerous driving, from
April 7, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
Responding to an eight percent spike in New Jersey traffic fatalities in 2016, largely attributable to increasing distracted driving, Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino and the Division of Highway Traffic Safety are announcing a new initiative to provide state residents with a method to report dangerous drivers in order to protect motorists and pedestrians.

The state’s #77 alert system, previously used for reporting aggressive driving, will now be used to report all forms of dangerous driving, from those operating a vehicle while looking at a cell phone to those driving while impaired. Enforcement measures are being stepped up on the road, and in an initiative believed to be one of the first of its kind in the nation, warning letters will be directed to those spotted driving while distracted on New Jersey roadways.

Traffic fatalities in New Jersey rose from 562 in 2015 to 604 in 2016, an average of 12 deaths a week. Division of Highway Traffic Safety officials have said the increase is in part because of distracted driving, such as cell phone use behind the wheel. In 2015 alone, 3,477 people were killed, and 391,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Teens were the largest age group reported as distracted at the time of fatal crashes.

Related Content

  • Participants in new phase of global road safety initiative selected
    February 13, 2015
    Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced the winning cities and countries selected to participate in a new phase of the foundation's Global Road Safety Initiative, which aims to reduce fatalities and injuries from road traffic crashes. With a new commitment of US $125 million over five years, the program will work at both the national level to strengthen road safety legislation and the city level implementing proven road safety interventions. Twenty invited cities participated in the competition with ten c
  • Highways England to deploy three HGV cabs to tackle unsafe driving
    February 13, 2018
    Highways England (HE) and Dawson Rentals have entered a partnership to deploy three unmarked HGV cabs that will patrol motorways and main trunk roads after one was used by Police to help catch over 4,000 dangerous drivers in its first two years. The vehicles come with wide angle cameras which are designed with the intention of capturing unsafe driving behaviour. These cabs allow police officers to film evidence of dangerous driving by pulling up alongside vehicles, whose drivers are then pulled over by
  • Deaths up and road safety spending down in England
    July 12, 2012
    Fifty local councils in England saw more than a ten per cent increase in killed and seriously injured (KSI) crash rates between 2010 and 2011, according to an Institute for Advanced Motorists (IAM) analysis of the new road accident figures. The biggest increases in KSI numbers were in St Helens – 62 per cent, Portsmouth – 57 per cent, Stoke on Trent – 57 per cent, and Coventry – 51 per cent. A further 76 councils saw increases in the KSI rate above the national average of two per cent.
  • Stepping up the fight against road deaths
    October 23, 2015
    The International Transport Forum (ITF) has welcomed the target to “halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2020” set by world leaders in September at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York. Every year, almost 1.3 million people are killed in road crashes around the globe, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).