There’s almost nothing good coming from the COVID-19 coronavirus, but there could be one potential positive thing — we should have fewer automobile fatalities. With schools and colleges closed, restaurants limited to take-out only, public gatherings limited to a handful of people, all ...
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s crash testing has led to life-saving improvement in occupant protection since it was introduced in 2003. The program has been so successful that the side ratings for current models are no longer helping consumers distinguish among vehicles or ...
A somewhat controversial article in January proposed that perhaps it was time for New York state to require some form of periodic driver refresher course for ALL drivers. It was controversial because it would be mandatory, come with some form of cost and require drivers' time to take the ...
On Friday, Feb. 7 there was a major snowstorm in much of upstate New York, with Franklin County getting around 15 to 20 inches. Most of that Friday saw intense snowfall, with accumulating snow on our roads despite constant plowing by the various highway departments. Although with all county ...
Last week’s article touted the safety benefits of roundabouts versus traditional intersection traffic controls such as stop signs and traffic signal lights. Today’s article is based on information found in the Jan. 12 issue of The Villages Daily Sun newspaper and discusses roundabouts in ...
I have written at least a half-dozen of these articles touting the benefits of roundabouts, especially the safety factor. Still, in the five-county area of New York State Department of Transportation Region 7 (Lewis, Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Franklin and Clinton), which has a population of ...
Last week’s article presented 20 questions on Vehicle and Traffic Law and traffic safety. Hopefully you took the test and kept your answers handy. This article repeats the questions and includes the answers. See how you did. --- True or false --- 1. If your vehicle has daytime ...
An annual winter feature of these weekly columns is a 20-question quiz on Vehicle and Traffic Law and traffic control devices (TCDs). The first 10 questions are true/false, and questions 11 to 20 are multiple choice. If you follow the weekly columns, you should do well, as all 20 questions ...
Recently a prominent local resident was telling me that she was recently stopped by a state trooper because she hadn’t turned on her headlights during a rainstorm. Although she was not ticketed, she admitted that she didn’t know it was a requirement to drive with full headlights in rain and ...
A regular reader of these traffic safety articles recently contacted me to ask about the use of the four-way hazard lights on vehicles when driving in snow and/or fog. His gripe was that a driver he was following was driving with his/her hazard lights flashing — since these lights are quite ...
We live in the northern part of New York state, and I have never seen a winter when it didn’t snow and, of course, cause roads to become slippery. OK, I’m being facetious, but my point is that if we chose to live in Franklin County, we must drive on roads that are slippery and difficult ...
It’s hard to believe that car systems designed to make driving safer and easier are placing drivers in danger, but a new study by the AAA Foundation finds this is the case. Adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping-assist technologies lull drivers into letting their guard down, which puts them ...
I recently had an inquiry from a driver who had purchased a light bar for his Jeep. The light bar was comprised of both amber and white lights. The white lights were designed for off-road use, and the amber lights consisted of three lights in the center of the light bar plus one amber light ...
Earlier this month I was contacted by Santa Claus from his North Pole location. Santa asked me to repeat a column that was distributed 10 years ago. He said that drivers have been reluctant to yield the right of way to him and his reindeer, with Rudolph leading the team on Christmas Eve. ...
If we know something is dangerous, why do we still do it? I was pondering this question relative to texting and driving and wondering just what makes drivers continue this very dangerous practice. One can Google this question and get 100 different reasons from 100 different sources. But I ...
Remember when anti-lock brakes first were available on automobiles? Those of you that do just might remember that we had a hard time changing our old habits of “pumping” the brakes. We didn’t have the confidence that just stomping on the brakes and letting the computer prevent the wheels ...
Last week’s column was about the illegality of stopping on a crosswalk. The article included a picture, repeated with this article, of a car stopped right on a painted crosswalk along with the front of another vehicle just prior to the crosswalk. The thrust of the article was that Vehicle ...
Note the picture of the green car in the left lane on Main Street (U.S. Route 11) in the village of Malone. This eastbound car is waiting for the red light at Harrison Place, but is right on the crosswalk. This driver is in violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law Section 1202(a)1d, which states: ...
Last week’s column was about those who work in enforcement correcting dangerous or unsafe driving habits, and I used my two speeding tickets in 1967 as what it took to modify my “speed limit plus 10” driving habit. Today, I will tell about what can happen when enforcement fails to do ...
Have you heard people say, “They write tickets only to get revenue”? This is an incorrect perception by many drivers, as the purpose behind enforcement (tickets, if you prefer) is to change bad driving habits that we all have. Speeding is a good example — I have said many times ...