So When SHOULD You Drive With Headlights On? It’s More Often Than You Think!

Knowing when to use your low-beam headlights is all about safety…  Forget the rules that you’ve seen in state drivers manuals; regrettably they are seriously inadequate on quite a few important topics!

A road sign / traffic sign in Massachusetts, advising drivers to keep headlights on at all times.
See?  It’s official:  Headlights on at all times for safety!  Unfortunately, this sign in Massachusetts applies only to one section of a single road. (Nevada has more.) However, the advice it gives is actually true everywhere and at all times.  (Copyright image, 2017.)

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Teen driver gets 3 years in 118 mph prom weekend crash that killed his friend

Memorial Page

Alexis “Lexi” Faye (17) NJ

 

Alexis Faye (Courtesy of Briana Moffat)

Around 5:30pm on Saturday, May 11, 2019, a teen driver crashed a Mercedes sedan at 118 mph in a 40 mph limit at Greendale Road, Fredon, NJ, resulting in the death of his friend Alexis “Lexi” Faye.

The driver has now been sentenced to three years in a state youth detention facility after pleading guilty to death by auto and violating a public safety law resulting in serious bodily injury.

RS-USA Comment:  Beyond the unspeakable tragedy of this incident, it is high-time the media — such as Fox News this time — became responsible enough to report such events as crashes, not accidents.  The driver on this occasion most certainly cannot claim that his alleged speed of 118 mph in a 40 mph limit is somehow “accidental,” or that the fact he then lost control of the vehicle, which ran off the road and rolled over, is somehow “accidental.”

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Memorial Page – Katie Berg, Caitlin Scannell, Sabrina Stahl (WI) Speed

Katie Berg (16),  Caitlin Scannell (17) and Sabrina Stahl (15)

These young people were killed in a crash caused by excessive speed, on Beechnut Drive, Campbellsport, Wisconsin, on February 4, 2012.  They were three of the nine girls in a Chevrolet Tahoe which went slightly airborne on a hill crest then slewed off the road, through a ditch, and rolled over repeatedly.

They were, in the words of one of the survivors, just “having fun” going fast.
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Roadside Safety for U.S. Law Enforcement Officers

One area of great concern to us at Road Safety USA is the welfare of state troopers and other emergency services personnel at traffic stops and highway incidents.  In the interests of full disclosure, the writer of this post is himself a retired traffic patrol police officer.

State police officer doing a traffic stop at night and nearly impossible to see until the last moment because he was not wearing a reflective jacket or vest.
A state trooper in significantly greater danger through the lack of reflective garments. As is so often the case, the flashing lights on the patrol vehicle were seriously dazzling, and the officer was effectively invisible until the last moments.  (Copyright image, 2017.)

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Memorial Page – Paul J. Miller, Jr. (21)

Paul J. Miller

August 3, 1988 — July 5, 2010

 

Road crash victim Paul J. Miller, Jr., killed on July 5, 2010.

At 3pm on Independence Day, 2010, Paul Miller hugged and kissed his mom Eileen farewell for what neither could possibly know would be the last time.

Paul was heading out to a party and ended up spending the night with friends, then headed for home the next morning, via PA State Route 33.

Paul’s thing in life was baseball and his passion was for the Yankees.

Eileen says that she always knew he was going to play for Lackawana College when he got there, but he knew by then that he was never going to play for the Yankees because he said “I’ve really got to buckle down and I’m just going to stick to my academics right now…”  Eileen knew when he said this that he had become a man.

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Bereaved Relatives Fighting to Get Justice for Loved Ones – USA & UK

The problem appears to be the same on both sides of the Atlantic:  distraught people who have just lost a partner, a parent, a sibling or a child, are repeatedly being told that a driver responsible for their tragic loss is only going to be charged with a low-ranking offence or maybe not charged at all.

This 40-minute video shows that victims in Britain are just as devastated by reluctance on the part of prosecutors as have been many of the people I have spoken to here in the USA in just the past few days.

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Road Safety Lessons from Norway – Introduction

Road safety lessons from Norway?  Are you asking yourself:  “Why Norway?”  If so, the answers — those that are visible to anyone that looks — are a revelation.

A motorhome / RV / camper van on top of one of the bridges on the Atlantic Road, in Norway.
Beautiful, sweeping bridges (two-way traffic) over a series of inlets on the evocatively-named ‘Atlantic Road’, on a stormy day, south west of Trondheim. And as suggested by the RV at the top of this bridge, Norway is a touring paradise.   (Copyright image, 2019.)

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Memorial Page – Anna Schroeder plus Victims from U.S. Route 219, NY

Anna Schroeder

June 15, 1995 – Sept. 8, 2013

 

A pretty memorial to Anna Schroeder is now the only one visible on U.S. Route 219, between Springville and Ellicottville, Western New York.   But this road has a very grim history.

Roadside memorial to Anna Schroeder, Route 219 south of Springville, NY.

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Dangerous Lane-Changing by Truck Drivers – Remind Your Family & Friends

Remind all the drivers among your family and friends to always look for people doing lane-changes without signalling, particularly at intersections when they realize they’re heading the wrong way!  See all five photo’s, below.

So far, all appears normal, Vehicles in the two right lanes are heading for I-87 North, and in the two left lanes for I-87 South or I-90 West. (Copyright image, 2019.)

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