N.J. State Police are issuing more tickets for speeding, careless driving on highways

The end of major construction projects that slowed traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway has been cited to explain why the state police are issuing more speeding and careless driving tickets. This 2012 photo is from Wikimedia Commons.

Editor's note: Drivers who speed, tailgate or weave through slower traffic are a major quality of life issue as the state's roads become increasingly congested, but the problem is ignored by the news media.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- You're more likely to be stopped for speeding or careless driving on New Jersey's major toll roads than you were just a few years ago.

Data for 2017 show the New Jersey State Police have begun to reverse a dramatic decline in the number of speeding and careless driving summonses issued on the turnpike and parkway -- the state's busiest roads -- between 2010 and 2015.

Troop D, which patrols the New Jersey Turnpike, issued 9,981 speeding summonses in 2017, compared to 8,861 in 2015, Lt. Ted Schafer, a state police spokesman, said today.

Careless  driving summonses issued on the turnpike totaled 6,234 in 2017, compared to 5,702 in 2015, he said.

Troop E, which patrols the Garden State Parkway, issued 9,021 speeding summonses in 2017 or 3,435 more than the 5,586 issued in 2015.

Careless driving summonses issued on the parkway totaled 5,857 in 2017, compared to 5,610 in 2015.

2010 to 2015

In November 2015, I reported in Eye on The Record that the decline in the number of speeding tickets issued on the turnpike was especially stark -- 9,950 up to that point in 2015, compared to 18,193 in 2010.

On the parkway, 6,543 speeding summonses had been issued in the first 11 months or so of 2015, compared to 9,669 in 2010. See: 

Speeding tickets declined dramatically in 2010-15

At the time, the state police defended their record, explaining their main objective is to reduce the number of fatal accidents on the state's busiest roads.

Fatal accidents on the parkway had dropped to 7 at that point in 2015, compared to 25 in 2010 and 31 in 2005.

On the turnpike, which is used by both cars and big trucks, there had been 19 fatal accidents in 2015, compared to 13 in 2010 and 23 in 2005.

Costco rotisserie chicken makes great dog food, besto pesto + other blasts from past

The ingredients list for the Kirkland Signature Seasoned Rotisserie Chicken at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro, above and below, includes salt, sodium phosphate, modified food starch, potato dextrin, carrageenan, sugar, dextrose and "spice extractives." The label is silent on all of the harmful human antibiotics used to raise the birds.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: The Sasson Report will return at the end of August. Meanwhile, please enjoy some of my most popular posts -- and don't miss the comments section.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

When I started blogging in 2009, I had no idea a post on a rotisserie chicken would get so much attention.

I started Do You Really Know What You're Eating? to continue the work I did as a food writer on a local daily newspaper.

As a blogger, I was able to expand that beat to include food shopping, which newspapers avoid covering lest they alienate one chain or another that pays them hundreds of thousands of dollars to run full-page ads.

I've also reported on the industrial-farm system for raising poultry and meat, especially the heavy reliance on harmful human antibiotics and growth hormones.

Bird isn't the word

As a member of Costco Wholesale, I love the quality of most of the products sold under the house or private label, Kirkland Signature, but not the seasoned rotisserie chicken.

My post on that low-quality bird, first published on Dec. 5, 2012, has been read more than 97,000 times, according to the internal counter on Google's Blogger platform.

See: Maggie the Labrador loves Costco chicken

A post comparing Costco's Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto with the pesto sold by Trader Joe's has had nearly 29,000 hits:

See: Who has the besto pesto?

After I bought a Tesla Model S in 2015, my most popular post on another blog, Shocking Car News, discussed how the media generally ignore the environmental benefit of green cars.

See: We'll be choking on these cars for years to come

By the way, if you are in the market for a Model S or Model X, using my unique referral code will get you a $1,000 credit on an all-electric vehicle, and free electricity for life at Tesla's nationwide network of Superchargers.

On The Sasson Report, which incorporates those blogs as well as Eye on The Record, a post on President Trump is the most popular so far.

See: Trump sounds heavily sedated

200,000 Americans will speak for silent majority at swearing in of unfit president

"I had a dream that you would ask not what you could do for your country, but for me," Donald J. Trump will say after he is sworn in on Friday as the 45th president of the United States, according to cartoonist Shan Wells of the Durango Telegraph.

From Pulitzer Prize winner Chan Lowe of Tribune Content Agency.

EYE ON THE RECORD

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

All of the stories and commentary looking ahead to the swearing in of Donald J. Trump as president on Friday triggered a vivid inauguration memory of my own.

In January 1973, I was a reporter for the Hartford Courant visiting Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of President Richard M. Nixon.

On a bitterly cold day and amid protests against the Vietnam War, I watched from the curb as the limo carrying Nixon rolled by.

"Kill him! Kill him!" shouted two protesters running alongside the long black car.

Later, I met briefly with my newspaper's Washington correspondent, who incorporated that scene into his Page 1 story for the Connecticut daily the next day.

Trump inauguration

More than 200,000 people are expected in the nation's capital to protest the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States, according to a story in The Record today, though none will get as close to him as the protesters I saw in 1973. 

"An estimated 1 million people plan to demonstrate in all 50 states and 32 countries," USA Today reports (5A). 

Plans for this unprecedented protest against Trump, who has been called unfit to hold office and illegitimate, should have run on today's front page.

'Trump Tracker'

Another Page 1 story notes Trump has "even called school choice 'the new civil rights issue of our time,' to the outrage of critics who say the movement has worsened segregation and taken needed dollars away from regular public schools" (1A).

Today's piece on education is part of "Trump Tracker," a four-year series that will follow 14 issues important to "New Jersey taxpayers, residents and companies" that could be affected by Trump policies.

On Monday, the series discussed homeland security, and New Jersey's "political influence" in Washington after Governor Christie had a falling-out with Trump, his onetime BBF. 

Martin Luther King

A half-dozen stories in The Record -- five of them in Local -- report on celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The New York Times reported on Monday that all 50 states celebrate the federal holiday on the third Monday in January, but some states, cities and towns "package it as a broader celebration of both Dr. King and Confederate leaders."

Or as an art teacher I had in high school used to say, "Save your Dixie Cups. The South will rise again."