Jackson town council deserves support for new driver sticker effort
Recent printed correspondence criticizing the Jackson Township Council's safety initiative to use stickers to identify new drivers prompts me to remind concerned citizenry that we are here for the same reason - our children, our first priority. The council should be supported and encouraged for nurturing an agenda for safety.

As part of the District 30 legislative team that drafted the Graduated Drivers Licensing (GDL) law for the state of New Jersey, and having worked with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety, Highway Traffic Safety, the Association of Police Chiefs and the American Automobile Association (AAA), to name a few, and other governmental agencies and highway safety advocate organizations and concerned private citizens throughout the state, I am well aware of the mission that councils and panels champion when looking at new drivers.

Unfortunately, tragic stories still abound, classified as statistics, but are really a cloud of sorrow and sadness that hangs over the state. Ocean County has been particularly vulnerable.

The graduated system was designed to eliminate frailties in the state's licensing process and now we are looking to further address safety concerns for our young drivers.

Safeguards as encompassing as the licensing legislation of new drivers, to much smaller projects such as oversight to the GDL rules, all have the same objective. Jackson Township's efforts to look at the problem

should be commended. We should foster goodwill to those who seek to protect.

We have a shared responsibility and partnership that when new drivers leave their driveway, no parent receives that dreaded phone call or knock at the door.

As a committed highway safety advocate, and with that goal in mind, I welcome ideas from committees and councils, such as the Jackson

Township Council, to

thoughts and ideas from the newspaper's readers.

I am confident readers are smart enough to distinguish our campaign to save teens from their No. 1 killer, motor vehicle accidents, from a campaign of another nature.

Robert W. Singer N.J. Senator, District 30

Lakewood