By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Friday, May 24, 1991
The Record (New Jersey) | One Star Four Star B Two Star | NEWS | Page B04
Operation Domino, the six-month driver-education program that sponsors said helped reduce automobile accidents in Bergen County by about 1,300 last year, worked so well it is getting a second chance this year beginning today.
“Buckle Up and Drive Defensively” will be the theme of Operation Domino Revisited, said John Pescatore, director of the Bergen County Office of Highway Safety.
Bergen County’s 70 police departments will concentrate on enforcing the state seat-belt law, he said. “Every death [on the county’s roadways] is a defeat,” Pescatore said. “When you go to an accident and you see that 17-year-old thrown from the car because he was not wearing a seat belt, when you go to an accident and you see a child thrown through with windshield because she was not in a child-restraint seat, they bring your defeats right before you.”
Last year’s effort a pilot program to see if enforcement, coupled with community awareness and cooperation, would effectively reduce the number of accidents in the county focused on a specific violation each month.
Some of the violations focused on were speeding, tailgating, not coming to a full stop at a stop sign, and failure to signal when changing lanes.
The program was so successful that the county was able to see a 10 percent compliance jump from 45 percent to 55 percent, 5 percent above the state average with the seat belt law, Pescatore said.
Motorists should be more careful this year, Pescatore said, because the slow economy has added more cars to state highways during a season of already high travel. More families than in years past will be planning shorter but more frequent trips to state’s shores and resort areas, he said.
As a result, Bergen County will work with Atlantic County on another pilot program Operation Leapfrog, a series of public service announcements asking residents of the two counties to buckle up, watch their speed, obey the rules of the road, and not drink and drive.
Keywords: BERGEN COUNTY; POLICE; MOTOR VEHICLE; SAFETY; EQUIPMENT; VIOLATION
ID: 17344338 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)
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