Join Nutley Pace Car to Make Our Town Safer

Nutley Pace Car & Pedestrian Education Program is a newly launched local movement that promote the idea of driving safety and pedestrian’s right. As a local auto dealer, Nutley Kia is glad to help promote this program and help Nutley become a better, safer town. We not only shared the information on our Twitter and Voices of Nutley community, but also did an interview with the Coordinator of Nutley Pace Car, Tara, to share more behind-the-scene story of the birth of this mission. Take a look at this exclusive interview and share with your friends and family, for the sake of safety.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do in this movement?

My name is Tara Spinelli, and I’m the Coordinator on a volunteer basis of the Nutley Pace Car & Pedestrian Education Program. By day, I’m a writer and user experience designer helping make websites and apps as useful as possible for their intended audiences. I’m fortunate to be able to apply my professional communication skills to help bring ideas for positive change to people who live and work in Nutley. Nutley Pace Car is one of the healthy community initiatives that I’ve had the privilege to help design and run under the auspices of the Nutley Health Department with grant funding from Partners for Health whose mission is to make our communities healthier, better places to live.

  

Who founded this movement? Can you share the birth story of Nutley Pace Car?

Nutley Pace Car grew out of our very successful walk-to-school initiatives Yantacaw Walks and Walker Walks, which are also funded by a grant from Partners for Health to the Nutley Health Department.

 

These programs were inspired by leading public health expert, pediatrician, and Nutley hall-of-famer Dr. Richard Jackson who impressed upon us the negative impact of a sedentary lifestyle on our children and the significant contribution to health and wellness that walking to school can make.

 

While Yantacaw Walks and Walker Walks have successfully re-engaged numerous students in walking to school, in a survey conducted by Yantacaw Walks, parents have expressed safety concerns such as unsafe intersections and speed of traffic:

“Drivers do not obey traffic laws!!!”

“Need to find a way to get the word out to the community to SLOW down especially during the morning and afternoon walking times.”

“Drivers continually speed and many times disobey the crossing guard and sometimes scream and/or gesture profanities!!!”

“Even with a crossing guard it’s pretty dangerous crossing the streets. The cars try to pass each other around the other cars that stop.”

Nutley Pace Car was born to help make our streets safer for everyone. Big thanks to Laura Torchio of Eat Play Live…Better for introducing us to this excellent model for changing driver behavior and helping us make it a reality in Nutley.

  

What is the mission of this campaign? And what achievement you try to accomplish?

The goal of this town-wide program is to make Nutley streets safer for everyone.

How does it work? Every Pace Car helps slow traffic, creating an effect that can soon be felt town-wide. The Pace Car magnet communicates your intentions to other drivers as you model courtesy and safe driving. As more people consider walking and biking to be good options, traffic is reduced, and our streets become safer for everyone.

Drivers pledge to:

• Drive the speed limit
• Stop for pedestrians in marked and unmarked crosswalks
• Share the road with pedestrians and bicyclists of all ages + abilities
• Eliminate distracted driving such as mobile phone use
• Display the Nutley Pace Car magnet on their vehicles

 

The program is open to all Nutley drivers, including residents, students, township and district employees, and Nutley business owners and their employees.
Since pedestrians share responsibility with motorists, the program also provides links to excellent materials tailored to specific audiences—children, parents/caregivers, teens, and seniors—to help them apply safe walking principles in their everyday lives.

 

Visit Nutley Pace Car and Pedestrian Education program on nutleynj.org, Facebook, and Twitter.

Read more on the next page.

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