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About Me
I'm the Pickups host here at Edmunds CarSpace.com - be sure to check out the Pickups forums if you have or are interested in one!
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The Big Rigs
We're gonna talk about the big ones... trucks and buses that require those 3 marker lights front and rear. Everything from dual rear wheel pickups to class 8 trucks to the bus that takes you to work.
Back in November, I made note of an upgrade to NJ's cell-phoning-while-driving law. Driving and using a handheld cell phone would become a primary offense on March 1 2008, and it would be beefed with an anti-text-messaging ban as well.
The results are in.
In February 2008, the last month of the previous rules, NJ courts handled 1300 cell-phone tickets. In March 2008, add another zero - thirteen thousand. In fact, that's almost as many as the preceding 12 months (16,000 from March 2007 to February 2008).
State and local police departments in NJ are not allowing a grace period to get used to the new tougher rules... they want to break drivers of the habit once and for all.
More on the story here... Associated Press/WCBS880.com
The last thing a misbehaving child wants to hear on a road trip...
 New Jersey is thinking about coming back there. The state assembly has introduced bills that will strengthen the existing seat belt law to include adults in the rear seat(s), and to raise the fines for not securing a child from $20 to as much as $500.
Most of us with sense buckle up as it is, so such a law should not intrude on the majority o drivers. But it will be interesting to see if these bills face challenges, and on what grounds. There was also no immediate information as to whether the proposal would apply to cars for hire, such as taxis and limos.
Then there is the decades-old debate about seat belts for buses. Because buses in general are allowed to operate with standing passengers, a seat belt law has generally been a no-issue - how would someone holding the ceiling grab rail buckle up, and to what? Bus company owners have argued that, unlike airplanes, buses don't operate in a complete terminal-to-terminal mode - passengers can be picked up or let off en route. And a bus driver is often not in a position to verify that everyone is buckled properly, where airplanes are staffed with attendants for that purpose. Proponents of a seat belt regulation for buses have attempted to delineate the use by specifying the bus type, but this has been effectively defeated by many local transit authorities purchasing "over the road" motorcoaches for suburban express service. So I doubt this will ever happen any time soon.
Regardless, if the buckle is there, use it. It beats the alternative.
If you have a large vehicle, parking is a consideration when you are deciding where to live. One of the reasons I chose the place I moved to in 2002 was because it gave me sufficient room to park a Dodge Ram dually without disturbing or blocking other residents. The pic below is my truck in its spot at my home.
Parking lots can be challenging. My space at work is not that big a deal unless someone next to my assigned space parks too close to the stripe. When I go shopping, whether it's a supermarket, small shopping center, or a full-fledged mall, I park away from the masses... not because I'm overly concerned about door dings, but because I want to make sure I have room to maneuver. (And besides, I need the exercise of walking an extra few hundred feet.)
What about people who drive something bigger? Talking to Vikki (driver of the red Pete on the left) last week, she checked with the local police about what she was allowed to do. The police were nice enough to look the situation over and give her an answer. When she's home from the road, she detaches the flatbed trailer and leaves that at the curb, and parks the Pete in the driveway. She used to park the rig in a nearby church parking lot, but when new leadership came in, they declined to extend the courtesy, claiming they didn't want to have to do that for others. (Like a church in a residential neighborhood is in danger of becoming a truck stop.)
When my dad was a bus driver in the 60s in Newark NJ, he was deadheading and realized there was something he left at the house. He parked the bus at the curb as if it were the family car and dashed in to grab whatever it was. As a little kid, I thought that was beyond cool and was glued to the living room window checking out the empty bus... the specific model was a GMC TDH-5304 of Public Service.
I guess if I hit the lottery, I'll make sure I have a driveway long and wide enough for Vik's rig if she wants to stop by while in the area.
 Sylvia, one of my partners in crime here at Edmunds, posted in her blog Driving Miss Crazy about texting while driving. New Jersey has addressed this issue this past week... Governor Corzine signed into law an upgraded measure regarding the use of cell phones. Previously, hand-held cell phones were not allowed while driving, but it was a secondary offense, meaning a police officer had to pull you over for another moving violation before adding a summons for using a hand-held cell phone while driving.
The new law in NJ now makes hand-held cell phone use a primary offense, with a fine of $250 for talking or $100 for texting. The revised law takes effect March 1 2008. The only other states with a primary-offense cell phone law are California, Connecticut, and New York, along with Washington DC. Washington state was the first state to ban texting.
Let's face it... do you really need to be that reachable all the time? I will not answer my cell phone while I'm behind the wheel... no matter who it is. They can leave a message and I will get back to them when I get where I'm going. And the avid texters will claim they know their phone's controls and keys so well that they don't have to look at the screen. That's an excuse not to focus on operating 2 tons of machinery at high speed amongst the otherwise unsuspecting public? There are enough people out there who don't drive properly when the only thing going on in their car is the air conditioning fan. Let's keep the distraction of trying to make/take a phone call or send a message to someone out of the equation so we're on a level playing field.
"Drop the phone, kick it over here... I SAID DROP IT!" That might not be a joke in the near future.
 This is the corner where I turn onto the main road of my town on my way to I-80. As you can see, the main road is a typical rural two-lane, with a double yellow line. Additionally, behind where I am standing is one of the town's 2 schools - the white sign across the road says "END SCHOOL ZONE".
This morning, I was at this very spot, waiting at th stop sign to turn right. A vehicle was approaching from the main road, right turn signal on, to turn onto the side street. To my surprise and amazement, a full-size van came around this vehicle... completely on the other side of the yellow lines so that he wouldn't have to slow down for the turning vehicle.
Let's look at the dumbness factors here:
1 - this is a gentle S-curve
2 - this is a marked school zone
3 - there is a double yellow line
Occasionally, a local cop sits in the grass at the opposite end of the school yard... alas, there was no officer there today.
Road stripes are all backed by laws unless they are on private property (the exception there being handicapped parking spaces which are backed by civil law). And yet so many drivers are either in such a hurry or so ignorant of driving in general that they treat them as "suggestions" instead of laws that can cost you a ticket. I'm not advocating a police-state mentality where if you creep an inch past the stop line at a traffic light, you deserve a $275 ticket and a 90-day license suspension. But it's both annoying and dangerous to ignore what these stripes are for.
Lane discipline on highways is a big problem. For those of us who drive larger/wider vehicles, we often have to deal with people who drift onto (or over) the lane stripes, giving us no margin for error. Tractor trailers sway... it's the laws of physics. But whose fault is it when some econobox driven by Charlie Oblivious (remember him from the Keep Right Except to Pass entry?) wanders over the stripes while he tries to dial his cell phone and chug some concoction from Starbucks, and gets spanked by the wagging tail of a semi that is swaying but never leaves its lane? I say Charlie deserves the redesigned fender he gets.
Statewide campaign called "Obey the Signs or Pay the Fines" has been rather effective in some locales. Here are the results in one town near me... Netcong nabs 98
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