By Nicole Baker
Staff Writer
We’ve all seen them. We may even be guilty of running over them from time to time. You know—those endless grooves along the shoulder of the road, right next to the white line? How many of us have ever so slightly veered off to the right while driving on the highway, only to have our jaws jarred by that unnerving vibration of our tires hitting the grooves?
No matter how annoying they are, we might as well get used to them. The New York State Department of Transportation will be setting up more of them throughout the next two years, particularly on the yellow centerlines, for good reason.
They’re called rumble strips, and those highway grooves can be found in two locations on a roadway: the shoulder, and now the centerline. Rumble strips are designed to try and save lives and prevent serious injury by alerting drivers when they are leaving the driving lane. They provide both an audible ‘rumbling sound’ warning, and a physical vibration. Simply reviewing the statistics and studying the habits of our generation are enough to reveal that their proliferation couldn’t have come at a better time.
In New York State alone, approximately 120 deaths and 3,500 injuries occur each year from non-intersection head-on collisions and opposite direction sideswipe crashes.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 80 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of all near-crashes involve some type of driver distraction. In 2008, 6,000 people died in crashes involving a distracted driver, and more than half a million were injured. If these sheer numbers don’t scare you, maybe the endless distracted driving commercials will, right? Based on the behavior I have observed, that’s not likely.
We’ve all seen the commercials that show some girl driving along in her car when she suddenly receives a text message from her friend that she simply cannot wait to read. She goes to pick up her phone while cruising down the highway at 70 mph, only to veer off into the other lane and crash into an oncoming car. The commercial ends in either injury or death to one or both of the drivers involved all because that girl couldn’t wait to read the text message that simply said, “K.” Seeing the countless commercials in rotation depicting this very scene are enough to make me want to stop all forms of distractions while driving in my car. Yet, it baffles me to see some of the habits of others while at the wheel despite the abundance of these commercials.
It’s simply outrageous the number of times I’ve seen people reading books while driving. Who ever thought it would be a good idea to read their novel while driving to work on a 65 mph highway, just so they can finish the last chapter? That’s just as bad as the guy I saw reading a newspaper while driving his tractor trailer.
Yet, it’s all similar to texting and driving, the overall biggest culprit of distracted driving for the younger generation. In my opinion, it’s just plain stupid and wrong for so many young adults to put their life, and others’ lives at risk on the road, simply because they cannot wait to text their friends. It seems as if the Department of Transportation and Governor Cuomo agree, and are taking the necessary action.
Over the next year or two, Governor Cuomo’s NY Work’s program will continue to add centerline rumble strips to roads across New York State to try and save as many lives as possible by preventing senseless accidents.
A comprehensive study conducted in 2009 and published by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) found that fatal and head-on injury and sideswipe crashes in urban areas were reduced by an average of 64 percent after centerline rumble strips were carved into the pavement. Likewise, these same types of collisions were reduced by an average of 44 percent in rural areas after the inclusion of centerline rumble strips.
Overall, the addition of these strips on roadways would prevent approximately 20 deaths and 250 serious injuries each year, and it would save around $85 million a year in crash costs—a savings of about $1.7 billion over a 20-year period.
The addition of these rumble strips along state highways is exactly what is needed. Government agencies and officials have gotten smart in their method of reducing accidents and saving lives. They have come up with a way to better protect the unsuspecting citizens of our society from the senselessness of the guilty ones. After all, the guilty citizens—the ones who text and drive, read and drive, drink and drive—are the ones who are stupid enough to put their own and others’ lives in danger while on the road. They are the ones we all have to look out for.
Hopefully, the centerline rumble strips will deliver on their promise. If they don’t, what more can be done to stop or prevent the foolishness of our generation? Put up foam barricades along the center line to prevent injury? Permanently confiscate the licenses of guilty parties upon their first violation of distracted driving? Regardless of what might be done, it certainly wouldn’t create a good impression as to the priorities and moralities of our generation. As for now, rumble strips seem to be the best answer, and our greatest hope.
