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NJDOT joins worldwide safety promotions

 

World Health Day focuses on road safety


"Road safety is no accident" is this year's United Nations World Health Day theme.

NJDOT joined with the New Jersey Automobile Club at its Florham Park Headquarters to mark the April event.

There is an absolute nexus between health and the need for greater safety on our highways. Every year, around the world, an estimated 1.2 million people die in motor vehicle crashes and 10-15 million people are injured in these crashes.

Under Governor McGreevey's Safety First initiative, we are making a dent in the short and long term safety needs of our highways. New Jersey is one of only seven states in the nation that had a reduction in motor vehicle fatalities, but we will not rest until all motor vehicle fatalities are down to zero.

Pedestrian fatalities fell 18 percent and motor vehicle fatalities fell 3 percent in the past year.

Municipalities conducted special World Health Day child seat checks throughout the state, free of charge, to ensure users have installed them properly. I advocate standardization of the seats to make the system as simple as plugging in a toaster.

NJDOT has undertaken several measures over the last year under Governor McGreevey's "Safe Corridors" bill including engineering and technological improvements, adding 500 miles of raised pavement reflectors, recording driver safety and public safety announcements and expanding driver education programs.

Other enhanced safety programs are our Safe Streets to Schools program, bike and pedestrian friendly trails for municipalities, increasing the number of the Emergency Service Patrols on state highways and promoting the #77 aggressive driver hotline phone number.

Work zone safety requires constant awareness

 

Fatalities in motor vehicle work zone crashes increased more than 50 percent in the last five years nationally; non-motorist fatalities (workers, pedestrians, bicyclists) in work zone crashes average around 140 persons every year nationally.
- U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, "Creating Safer Work Zones"

Each day when I look outside my window at the NJDOT Employee Memorial, I am reminded that it honors 32 of our employees killed in the line of duty - many of them in work zone accidents.

NJDOT joined fellow members of the New Jersey Work Zone Safety Partnership at our Fifth Annual Work Zone Safety Awareness Conference and New Technology Showcase in April. National Work Zone Awareness Week is a time for the transportation family to recommit itself to increasing safety.

In May we will engrave one more name, Kyle Kristensen, a Drawbridge Operator who was killed on the Victory Bridge in Perth Amboy, on the plaque on the NJDOT Employee Memorial.

All 33 names will be submitted for placement on the National Work Zone Memorial. This memorial honors not only work zone employees, but also motorists, pedestrians, children, law enforcement officers and public safety officials such as fire fighters and paramedics. It travels nationwide to raise public awareness of the need to respect and stay safe in America's roadway work zones.
 
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  Last Updated:  January 19, 2005