Tips for Driving in Wintery Conditions

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The National Safety Council reports that cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year. Nearly 390,000 injuries occur each year from accidents caused by texting while driving. 1 out of every 4 car accidents in the United States is caused by texting and driving. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, texting behind the wheel takes a driver's eye off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, which is the time it takes to go from one end zone to the other. ... In that same survey, more than 90 percent of drivers know texting while driving is dangerous. Five years ago, Newsday reported that texting and driving usurped drinking and driving as the number one killer of teens behind the wheel. While parents of new drivers know about the dangers of distracted driving, the smartphone has remained one of the biggest dangers among new drivers. According to the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, distracted driving is the culprit behind nine percent of the fatal crashes among the 15-19 age group. In 2015, distracted driving killed more than 3,000 individuals—or about 9 people each day. Law Enforcement is starting to take note and police departments are getting creative in attempting to curb this dangerous trend. State police in Chattanooga, Tennessee, have been known to patrol in a tractor-trailer so they can sit up high and spot drivers texting behind the wheel. In Bethesda, Maryland, a police officer disguised himself as a homeless man, stood near a busy intersection and radioed ahead to officers down the road about texting drivers. And in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, south of Boston, an officer regularly tools around town on his bicycle, pedals up to drivers at stoplights and hands them $105 tickets. In New York, texting tickets soared from about 9,000 in 2011 to nearly 85,000 in 2015. In Massachusetts, they rocketed from about 1,100 to a little over 6,100 over the same period. In California, the number of people found guilty of texting while driving climbed from under 3,000 in 2009 to over 31,000 in 2015. The auto insurance industry has taken note. Some companies have begun to surcharge premiums for those with cell phone violations the same as they would for a DUI. For many drivers that could mean an increase in premium of hundreds of dollars for a period of 3 to 5 years. Anyway you look at it – texting while driving is a BAD BET. *Material for this blog was obtained from various online sources

The Connecticut legislature is ironing out the final details of Public Act 18-160. This legislation will add a $12 fee to every homeowners insurance policy (not including tenant) issued in the state. The funds collected will be deposited in the Healthy Homes Fund established for the sole purpose of assisting homeowners whose foundations are crumbling due to phyrrhotite (iron sulfide) content in the concrete that was used. This type of loss is not covered by insurance. Cracking may appear as variegated, "random pattern" in concrete slabs, walls, and foundations whose concrete contains high levels of pyrrhotite. Moisture as well as oxygen react with this iron sulfide material, causing it to swell with tremendous force, causing varied-pattern cracking in the concrete. The fee will be charged starting January 1, 2019 until December 31, 2029.

When motorcycles and cars collide there can never be a good result. As our Connecticut weather improves more and more motorcycles will be taking to the road. And as that happens the incidence of motorcycle-car collisions will increase. By definition, accidents are not intentional acts. They occur because at least one driver is inattentive, distracted or uses bad judgement. Motorcycles may be hard to spot or maybe traveling faster than you thought but inevitably with little protection, and in Connecticut, many cyclists without a helmet, serious injury or death to the motorcyclist are is not an unusual result putting the drivers of cars in serious financial peril The following material is obtained from “ctbythnumbers” : The state Department of Transportation expects 47 motorcyclists to die in traffic accidents in this year and next. According to a Department of Transportation report for Fiscal 2017, there was a fluctuating number of motorcyclist fatalities from 2010 to 2014, with a low of 37 in 2011 and a high of 57 in 2013. Those numbers are expected to remain constant, department projections indicate. The report said the majority of motorcycle fatal and injury crashes occurred between the hours of noon and 8 p.m. and the crashes most commonly happened on Saturdays and Sundays. Most fatal and injury crashes occurred in the summer months, and almost all motorcycle operators involved in crashes were male. Cited most often as contributing factors were “driver lost control,” “driving too fast for conditions,” and “road condition/object in road.” In multiple vehicle crashes where the other driver was at fault, the major contributing factor in 47 percent of these crashes was failure to grant the right-of-way, the DOT report indicated. May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month. Only about 42 percent of motorcyclists in Connecticut wear helmets, according to Neil Chaudhary, PhD, leader of a Trumbull team of premier investigators on behavioral traffic safety-related issues at Preusser Research Group, Inc. In states where helmets are required, there is near 100 percent compliance, he recently told the Newtown Bee, adding professional driver training, offered throughout the state, can help riders to develop stronger defensive driving skills. The Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center reports the estimated loss to the state from motorcycle related injuries and death is $400 million. The group says helmet use reduced the risk of death by 37% and head injuries by 69%, FOX61 reported. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that about 5,000 motorcycle operators and hundreds of motorcycle passengers lose their lives in accidents each year in the United States. These numbers account for about 13 percent of total traffic fatalities, even though motorcycles account for just three percent of all registered vehicles, the Newtown Bee reported. In addition to the fatalities, about 100,000 operators and passengers are injured each year.

According to an article in the Standard, for the second year is a row, pedestrian deaths will hover around 6,000 accounting for almost 16% of deaths involving motor vehicles as opposed to 11% a few years ago. This based on data compiled by the Governors Highway Safety Association GHSA). The GHSA attributes this alarming trend to the use of smartphones and the legalization of recreational marijuana. According to the data, for the period 2012 to 2016, the seven states and D.C. that legalized marijuana use experienced a 16.4% increase in pedestrian deaths as compared to a 5.8% decrease in the states that didn’t.

The typical Homeowners Insurance policy in use today is a “package” policy that includes all sorts of coverage, some of which is obvious but some of which is not. The average policy will include about 50 pages of text that details the policy coverages, conditions, limitations and exclusions. Also, there is a sections that is referred to as the policy Declarations. The policy Declarations tailor the policy to the needs of a specific insured and make the policy unique to the individual or individuals listed as the “Named Insured”. In addition to showing the Named Insured, the Declarations pages specify the insurance company providing the coverage, the policy number, the policy term, the location that is insured, the coverages and limits that apply, the coverage forms that apply, list any additional interests and show the policy premium. Our next article will continue our “journey” of discovery into the land of the Homeowners insurance policy.