TRAFFIC SAFETY EXPOSITION TARGETS TEEN, SENIOR DRIVERS.Byline: Eugene Tong tong 1 tr.v. tonged, tong·ing, tongs To seize, hold, or manipulate with tongs. [Back-formation from tongs. Staff Writer SANTA CLARITA Santa Clarita, city (1990 pop. 110,642), Los Angeles co., S Calif., suburb 30 mi (48 km) NW of downtown Los Angeles, on the Santa Clara River; inc. 1987. Situated in the Santa Clara valley and nearby canyons, Santa Clarita includes the former towns of Canyon Country, - The Santa Clarita Valley The Santa Clarita Valley is the valley of the Santa Clara River in Southern California. It stretches through Los Angeles County and Ventura County. Its main population center is the city of Santa Clarita. The valley was part of the 48,612-acre (19,672. sheriff's station is hosting an exposition designed to educate the public on traffic safety, officials said Thursday. The Traffic Safety Expo slated for April 2 will include discussions on enforcement, engineering, teen safety and senior driver education, said Tony Arnold, a sheriff's traffic investigator. ``There are a lot of new drivers on the roadway, and a lot of elderly drivers on the road,'' he said. ``We want to share some knowledge with them and give them pointers on how they can drive better.'' The expo will be 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 2 at the sheriff's station, 23740 Magic Mountain Parkway, Valencia. The expo will include interactive displays with driving simulators Driving Simulators are used for entertainment as well as in training of driver's education courses taught in educational institutions and private businesses. They are also used for research purposes in the area of human factors and medical research, to monitor driver behavior, and a driving under-the-influence-related wrecked car brought in by the Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is a nonprofit organization with more than 600 chapters nationwide. MADD seeks to find effective solutions to the problems of drunk driving and underage drinking, while also supporting those persons whose relatives and friends have been killed by drunk organization. Though 16- to 18-year-olds make up about 12 percent of the driving population, they are involved in 25 percent of traffic collisions, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. national statistics. First-year drivers are four times more likely to be in a collision than other drivers, and senior citizens also have a higher average of incidents. Local law enforcement and city officials have tackled traffic safety over the past year. The sheriff's station last fall received a two-year, $311,000 state traffic safety grant, which funded such programs as sobriety checkpoints Sobriety checkpoints or roadblocks involve law enforcement officials stopping every vehicle (or more typically, every nth vehicle) on a public roadway and investigating the possibility that the driver might be impaired to drive. and patrols devoted to catching drunk drivers. Officials are applying for a second grant, Arnold said. A DUI checkpoint (programming) checkpoint - Saving the current state of a program and its data, including intermediate results, to disk or other non-volatile storage, so that if interrupted the program could be restarted at the point at which the last checkpoint occurred. costs about $6,000 to organize. Deputies also began the Sheriff's Teen Traffic Offender program last April to identify reckless teenage drivers. The department has received some 400 reports so far. ``Not only are teens being identified, but adults are being identified too,'' Arnold said. Meantime, the city has installed cameras at several busy intersections to catch red-light runners. More than 3,300 violation notices have been sent to motorists between August and December 2004. The fine for a red- light camera ticket is $341. ``(Traffic safety) is one of the highest priorities the City Council has,'' city spokeswoman Gail Ortiz said. ``(The red-light camera) program is a really good deterrent, but now we want to focus even more on the education aspect and improving drivers' skill.'' For more information on the expo, contact sheriff's Deputy Mike Lorenzi at (661) 799-8304. Eugene Tong, (661) 257-5253 eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com |
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