From Oct. 16 to 19, three leading traffic safety organizations in New York state – the governor’s Traffic Safety Committee, the state Association of Traffic Safety Boards and the state STOP-DWI Association – sponsored the annual statewide traffic safety symposium, held this year in Lake Placid. With a variety of offerings, the nearly 300 attendees, ranging from all walks of enforcement, members of traffic safety boards, and persons involved in some manner with traffic safety attended numerous sessions involving things like motorcycle enforcement, dangers of teen driving, senior driver risks, commercial motor vehicle safety, effects of drugged driving, distracted driving, speed- related crashes and many other topics of interest.

I was fortunate to attend sessions on the two principal days, Monday and Tuesday. The general session Monday morning began with an address by Michael Geraci, Regional Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who spoke on the disrespect for enforcement and how that may play into work performance. He also spoke of new technology that can automatically detect drivers with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 and over and how rapidly the automated vehicles are coming. According to Geraci, autonomous vehicles just might be the best thing to affect transportation in 100 years.

Next speaker was a keynote address on “Perspectives in Teen Driving Safety” by Dr. Kate McDonald, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She mentioned how teen drivers are at a risk-taking age, and how graduated licensing has helped reduce teen crashes. She explained that teen crashes are most likely to be rear-end events. Teens crash because of inexperience, impairment, and distractions.

Interestingly, teen drivers recognize the danger of using a smartphone while driving but still engage in doing so. How long they utilize the handheld device depends on who is calling or texting and on what subject it is. Of note, it is often a parent that is calling. Parents, are you paying attention?

Other interesting sessions that I attended included re-examination of senior drivers and speed management. Driving skills decline with age. A re-examination can be triggered by law enforcement, physicians, three reportable crashes within 18 months or by any member of the public by completing DMV form DS-7. When this occurs, DMV investigates the referral and if it deems it necessary will require a road test.

The session on speed management was also interesting. Since speed is at least a contributing factor in one-third of all traffic crashes, engineering, education, and enforcement are all vital to reducing speed-related crashes. Enforcement utilizes both LIDAR and radar to measure vehicle speeds. Most police vehicles have radar equipment in their patrol vehicles, which can accurately measure speeds of vehicles whether stationary or moving; if the police vehicle is moving, radar can measure speeds of other vehicles that are traveling either toward or away from the police unit.

This was a very informative symposium. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a lot to be done. Unfortunately, motor vehicle fatalities are increasing after a number of years of decline. We need to reverse this latest trend.

For more on traffic law and traffic safety, visit the Traffic Safety Board website at www.franklincony.org, and select Traffic Safety Board under “Departments.”