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

  • EU urged to green-light revised cross-border enforcement proposal
    October 9, 2014
    Road safety campaigners and European traffic police have welcomed the agreement by EU transport ministers to back a change to rules on cross-border enforcement of traffic offences such as speeding. This comes on the heels of an Institute of Advanced Motorists report that 23,295 overseas drivers have escaped UK speeding penalties since January 2014. The European Commission published a revised cross-border enforcement law in July in response to a European Court of Justice ruling in May that said the exi
  • Congestion costs US trucking industry US$9.2 billion in 2013
    May 1, 2014
    Congestion on US Interstate highways added over US $9.2 billion in operational costs to the trucking industry in 2013, according to research released by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). ATRI, the trucking industry’s not-for-profit research institute, utilised motor carrier financial data along with billions of anonymous truck GPS data points to calculate congestion delays and costs on each mile of Interstate roadway. Delay totalled over 141 million hours of lost productivity, which equ
  • TfL cycle superhighways plans will still disrupt traffic, says FTA
    January 28, 2015
    The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has set out final plans for the construction of Europe’s longest substantially-segregated urban cycleways, the centrepiece of his US$1.3 billion commitment to get more Londoners on their bikes. Subject to approval by Transport for London, construction of the routes will begin in March. Two continuous cycle routes, almost completely separated from traffic, will cross central London from east to west and north to south, opening up thousands of new journey opportunit
  • Rethink required to reduce road transport’s environmental impact
    March 15, 2016
    Against a background of a renewed focus on limiting the rise in average temperatures, Colin Sowman looks at a project that is taking a holistic approach to the environmental impact and safety of road transport. At the COP21 meeting in Paris last December, almost 200 nations agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to keep the rise in global temperatures to 2°C) compared with pre-industrial levels. The transportation sector is a major contributor to the production of CO2, one of the main green