Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

March 13th, 2010

Safety is No Accident
Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk This St. Patrick’s Day

Don’t Depend on Dumb Luck—Designate a Sober Driver Before the Party Begins

March is the month to don some green, pull out the shamrocks, and look for the pot of gold. St. Patrick’s Day is approaching, spring is arriving and every one is ready to celebrate and enjoy good cheer. For many St. Patrick’s Day has become a popular night out to celebrate with friends and family. Unfortunately, due to the large number of drunk drivers, the night out has also become very dangerous.

On St. Patrick’s Day 2008, 37 percent of the drivers and motorcyclists involved in fatal crashes had a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .08 or above, according to statistics by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“Whether you are meeting a few friends at the local pub after work or attending parade, if you plan on using alcohol, never drive while impaired-and never let your friends drive if you think they are impaired”. 

Additional NHTSA statistics show that in 2008, there were 134 crash fatalities on St. Patrick’s Day. Out of that number, 50 people were killed in traffic crashes that involved at least one driver or motorcyclist with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher.

For a safe St. Patrick’s Day take the following steps:

  • Plan a safe way home before the festivities begin;
  • Before drinking, please designate a sober driver and leave your car keys at home;
  • If you’re impaired, use a taxi, call a sober friend or family member, or use public transportation so you are sure to get home safely;
  • Use your community’s Sober Rides program
  • If you happen to see a drunk driver on the road, don’t hesitate to contact your local law enforcement;
  • And remember, if you know someone who is about to drive or ride while impaired, take their keys and help them make other arrangements to get to where they are going safely.Driving impaired is simply not worth the risk, not only do you risk killing yourself or someone else, but the trauma and financial costs of a crash or an arrest for driving while impaired can be really significant. Don’t depend on dumb luck this St. Patrick’s Day. Designate your sober driver before the party begins.

    For more information, visit www.StopImpairedDriving.org.

    *- ST. PATRICK’S DAY IS DEFINED AS 6PM MARCH 16 TO 5:59AM MARCH 18
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Saving Time, Saving Energy Daylight Saving Time: Its History and Why We Use It

March 13th, 2010

                                                clock face
By
Bob Aldrich, Webmaster
California Energy Commission

Spring forward…Fall back….

It’s ingrained in our consciousness almost as much as the A-B-Cs or our spelling reminder of “i before e….” And it’s a regular event, though perhaps a bit less regular than the swallows coming back to Capistrano. (Though that may even change with the impacts of global climate change.)

Yet in those four words is a whole collection of trivia, facts and common sense about Daylight Saving Time.

Beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time is extended one month and begins for most of the United States at: 2 a.m. on the Second Sunday in March and lasts until 2 a.m. on the First Sunday of November.

The new start and stop dates were set in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Daylight Saving Time – for the U.S. and its territories – is NOT observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and by most of Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona).

Indiana, which used to be split with a portion of the state observing DST and the other half not, is now whole. In the past, counties in the Eastern Time Zone portion of the state did not observe DST. They were on standard time year round. A state law was passed in 2005 that has the entire state of Indiana observing DST beginning in April 2006. Indiana isn’t the only state that wanted to change daylight saving time. California asked for federal “approval” to move to a “year-round” Daylight Saving Time in 2001-2002 because of its energy crisis. (See below.)

According to Mining Co. Guide to Geography, DST is also observed in about 70 countries:

“Other parts of the world observe Daylight Saving Time as well. While European nations have been taking advantage of the time change for decades, in 1996 the European Union (EU) standardized an EU-wide “summertime period.” The EU version of Daylight Saving Time runs from the last Sunday in March through the last Sunday in October. During the summer, Russia’s clocks are two hours ahead of standard time. During the winter, all 11 of the Russian time zones are an hour ahead of standard time. During the summer months, Russian clocks are advanced another hour ahead. With their high latitude, the two hours of Daylight Saving Time really helps to save daylight. In the southern hemisphere where summer comes in December, Daylight Saving Time is observed from October to March. Equatorial and tropical countries (lower latitudes) don’t observe Daylight Saving Time since the daylight hours are similar during every season, so there’s no advantage to moving clocks forward during the summer.”

For the whole article with history and reasons go to http://www.energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html

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Is your home underinsured? 8 key points

March 5th, 2010

Don’t rely on your insurance company to size up what you need. Here are the steps you should take to make sure that a disaster doesn’t ruin you.
By Liz Pulliam Weston 

After each natural disaster, too many people discover an awful truth: They don’t have enough insurance to rebuild their homes.Nationwide, 68% of homeowners are underinsured, according to a survey by insurance-services firm MSB, by an average of 18%. That means someone whose house cost $200,000 to replace would find herself short by $36,000.

Where homes and rebuilding costs are higher, the problem can be even more acute. A survey by United Policyholders, a consumer advocacy group, said 75% of California homeowners affected by the 2007 wildfires in San Bernardino and Riverside counties were underinsured by an average of $240,000.

Trying to figure out the right amounts of insurance coverage, however, is a tricky, frustrating process. Your insurance company or agent may be surprisingly little help and may even steer you wrong:

  • Many victims of Hurricane Katrina said their agents had told them they didn’t need flood insurance when, clearly, they did. Courts ruled that insurers didn’t have to pay for damage caused by flooding.
  • Likewise, many homeowners who lost property in the 2003 San Diego County wildfires complained that their agents had used a computer survey that vastly underestimated the cost of rebuilding their homes. The survey, called Quick Quote, was part of a larger software package sold to insurers to estimate replacement costs and was later removed.

Homeowners often compound the problem by failing to report renovations to their insurers or by simply assuming their coverage is keeping up with inflation and replacement costs, which probably isn’t true.

You might think insurers would err the other way, pushing folks to over-insure their homes. But that’s generally not the case. 

Lulled into complacency

Insurance analyst Brian Sullivan says the annual premiums paid on most policies are too small for insurers to spend much time doing a detailed assessment of customers’ needs.

“If you ask most insurance companies what they’re insuring — how many hardwood floors, how many fireplaces — they have no idea,” said Sullivan, the editor of Risk Information, an industry newsletter. “It’s only companies like Chubb that have (policies with) premiums in the thousands of dollars that will come out and appraise your home and everything in it.”

Homeowners are often lulled into complacency because they have “guaranteed-replacement” or “extended-replacement” policies, which sound like they’ll cover the rebuilding of a home regardless of the cost, said attorney Amy Bach of United Policyholders, the consumer advocacy group.

But true guaranteed-replacement policies are almost extinct, and virtually all insurers cap their payouts at 100% to 150% of the amount for which the home is insured. 

How to ensure adequate coverage

Bach recommends consumers buy the highest cap they can afford and take the following steps:

Use Web tools to estimate replacement costs. Bach recommends AccuCoverage, an MSB site that charges $7.95 and walks you through a questionnaire that usually takes 20 to 30 minutes to complete. Another site, HomeSmart Reports, charges $6.95 and takes less time but offers less detail, Bach said. HomeSmart Reports gives a low and high estimate of what it would cost to replace your home, plus a standard cost of construction in your area, but it doesn’t account for custom features.

Compare the estimate with your policy limits. You’ll find them on the declarations page of your policy. If your insurer can’t explain discrepancies to your satisfaction, start shopping for another insurer.

Don’t be cheap. Make it clear to your insurer or agent that you want the best coverage for your money, not the lowest possible premiums.

Decide on disaster coverage. Floods and earthquakes aren’t covered by your homeowners insurance. If you’re in an area considered at high risk for hurricanes, you may have to buy insurance from a special windstorm-coverage pool. Unless you’re prepared to walk away from your home after a disaster, you need to consider such coverage.

Check your “loss of use.” Homeowner policies typically provide money to pay your rent and related living expenses while your home is being rebuilt. Again, you should find this coverage on the declarations page. If the amount offered wouldn’t cover you for two full years, Bach recommends asking for a higher limit or finding another insurer.

Get “replacement cost,” not “actual cash value.” It’s not just rebuilding coverage that falls short. Many policies severely restrict how much money you’d get to replace your stuff and limit or even exclude some common household items from your policy. If you have a policy that pays out actual cash value on your home’s contents, for example, you’d get a check for what your possessions were worth when they were destroyed, not what they would cost to replace.

It’s much better to spring for replacement cost on your contents. You’d typically still get an initial check for the depreciated value of your items, but after you replaced them (and provided receipts to your insurer), you’d get another check to make you whole. The cost of this coverage is typically about 10% to 20% more than actual-cash-value coverage.

However, you still could be vulnerable. Some policies provide replacement-cost coverage for most items but make exceptions for others. Your policy might give you a check to buy a new couch, for example, but decide to depreciate your carpet and give you only a fraction of the replacement cost.

The only way to know how you’re protected is to read your policy, front to back.

Many policies peg your contents coverage to a percentage of your overall policy limit. If your home is insured for $200,000, for example, your contents coverage might be $80,000 or $100,000 or $150,000, depending on the insurer’s policies. Obviously, there’s a lot of variation, and these limits don’t reflect whether your furniture consists of Chippendale or chipped-and-dented. The only way to be sure you’re adequately covered is to do a detailed household inventory, writing down all of your possessions and what they would cost to replace. A drag? Of course. But it’s time you’ll be glad you invested if you’re ever faced with making a claim. 

Make sure the good stuff has its own insurance. If you own something truly valuable, chances are good that your policy restricts how big a check you’d get. Most policies put payout limits of $1,000 to $2,500 on such items as jewelry, firearms, artwork and antiques. If you want full coverage, you need to purchase a “floater,” or “rider,” on the items at added cost. Consider your individual needs. Your policy likely has some other gaping holes.

Homeowners insurance typically won’t replace equipment you use for a home-based business. Property belonging to a tenant is usually excluded. Damage from certain causes, such as a flood or sewer backup, won’t be covered either. In these cases, you can get supplemental coverage — and you probably should. (See “10 things your insurance may not cover.”)

Protect yourself from lawsuits.

That’s the role of liability coverage. Chances are pretty good that you don’t have enough protection, which means you could be in danger of losing everything you own to someone who decided to sue you. Again, choosing how much liability to buy is tough. You can’t predict who is going to sue you or for how much. Although most insurance experts advise buying liability coverage equal to one or two times your net worth, a jury could come back with a whopping award that bears no relationship to what you own or could earn in a lifetime. Good records, detailed claims and persistence help you get your money faster and avoid problems. Still, trial attorneys tend to go for the easy money and often settle for the amount of your policy — unless you’re vastly underinsured. Then they’re likely to go to the time and trouble of identifying, and going after, all of your available assets. That’s why Steve Vidmar, an insurance defense attorney in New Mexico, recommends that most homeowners have at least $1 million in coverage. That means buying the maximum coverage your policy allows — typically $250,000 to $500,000 — plus an “umbrella” or personal-liability policy that provides coverage up to $1 million. “I’d recommend even higher limits,” Vidmar said, “for those with teenage drivers.” Fortunately, boosting your liability coverage is still relatively cheap. A $1 million umbrella policy usually costs $200 to $300 a year.

 Get the latest from Liz Pulliam Weston. Sign up to receive her free weekly newsletter.

The time to make these adjustments is now. It’s too easy in the chaos of living to put off investing in your coverage, but it’s too late once a disaster strikes.

Liz Pulliam Weston is the Web’s most-read personal-finance writer. She is the author of several books, most recently “Your Credit Score: Your Money & What’s at Stake.” Weston’s award-winning columns appear every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions on theYour Money message board.

Updated July 14, 2009

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Teenage Driving – Special Report

February 20th, 2010

Special Report:  The Dangers of Teen Driving
Car crashes are the No. 1 killer of teens. It’s time to take action.

By Joseph K. Vetter with Fran Lostys
From Reader’s Digest
 
Warning: Teen DriversThe numbers aren’t budging. Fatalities did drop from the mid-’70s through the early ’90s, mainly because of tougher seat belt and drunk driving laws. But since then, the statistics have remained stubbornly high, despite improved safety features in cars.

Some of this is due to teens themselves. “Anytime you have immaturity combined with inexperience, you have the potential for disaster,” says Nicole Nason, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “And that’s what you get with a 16-year-old behind the wheel.”

But that’s not the whole story. Speed, distraction, and driver inexperience cause most crashes-and those things can be controlled. “These deaths should not be considered an inevitable part of the teen experience,” says Justin McNaull, director of state relations for AAA. “We can change this.” Here are three steps that will prevent crashes and save countless lives — of teens and others on the road.

  1. TEACH YOUR KIDS
    Part of the reason for teens’ poor judgment is hardwired: The brain’s prefrontal cortex-which handles tasks like controlling impulses-isn’t fully formed. “Our brains get tons of input from multiple places,” says Flaura Winston, MD, scientific director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Adults don’t act on all those impulses; we sort them. But teens have a hard time doing this.” And they have a hard time understanding what’s risky in a car. In a recent study, researchers surveyed 5,600 teens and found huge gaps in their knowledge.One problem is that teens fail to see certain behaviors as dangerous. Only 28 percent said using a cell phone is a risk, and 10 percent said the same about having other teens in the car. (They’re both big distractions, and boys in the car are more distracting than girls.) Only half cited speeding or not wearing a seat belt. Even if teens got the right idea about a behavior-for instance, 87 percent said drinking and driving is dangerous-they didn’t view it as their problem: Only 16 percent said they ever see it happen. (Some might be lying; 25 percent of young drivers killed in crashes had been drinking.)

    The message for parents: Spell out the dangers for your kids. It’s up to you because only 20 percent of schools offer driver ed today, down from 90 percent in the 1980s. Nason says, “You have a responsibility to make sure your child isn’t going to drive into someone else head-on because he’s busy chatting on his cell phone and nobody’s told him, ‘Hang up the phone and drive the car.’ ”

 

  1. FIGHT FOR STRICTER STATE LAWS
    “You don’t suddenly become a good driver when you turn 16,” Nason says. “We need to ease teens into a lifelong habit of good driving.”That’s the goal of graduated driver licensing laws, which impose restrictions before teens earn a full license. An ideal law would set the minimum age for a permit at 16, limit passengers to one, ban cell phones, prohibit driving between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., and not allow a full license until age 18.

    These laws make sense. A recent study by Johns Hopkins University for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that a tough phase-in law could decrease deaths among 16-year-old drivers by 38 percent. “It’s clear that giving young drivers more time behind the wheel with supervision makes a big difference,” says Susan Baker, the study’s coauthor.

    That was the case in Georgia, where a graduated licensing law slashed fatal crashes involving 16-year-old drivers by 37 percent over five years and cut speeding-related fatal crashes among the same age group by nearly half. The law also imposes stiff penalties — including having a license taken away for up to a year-for speeding, reckless driving, and other serious errors.

    Currently, 47 states have phase-in laws, but few are as effective as they could be. Only eight set the minimum age for a permit at 16. Fewer than ten prohibit driving after 10 p.m. And only 12 have strict limits on passengers. Kansas State Senator Phil Journey pushed for a bill to impose nighttime, passenger, and cell phone restrictions on teen drivers, but it failed in his state’s House of Representatives. He says the costs of refusing to act are obvious: “Statistically, we know that somebody’s going to leave home and is not going to survive because this bill didn’t become law.”

    Find out how to lobby for tough laws in your state.

    The main obstacle is the belief that stricter measures impinge on parents’ right to decide when and with whom their kids drive. The reasons for the complaints vary: Some parents want their teens to run errands unaccompanied; others want their kids to drive a farm truck as soon as possible. (That’s what sank the Kansas bill.)

    Vermont State Representative Kathy Lavoie, the mother of two teens, supports some limitations but balks at a nighttime restriction that would prevent kids from driving to hunting grounds in the early morning, which teens in her state enjoy. “When it comes to an infringement on parental rights, I get nervous,” she says.

    Nason of the traffic safety administration has heard these objections before. “Fear of the ‘nanny state’ always rears its head,” she says. “But a car crash doesn’t just affect the person in the car. It affects the people in the car they hit.” Add in the costs to law enforcement and health care, she notes, and it’s hard to argue against putting society’s interests ahead of parents’ rights. In a recent study, AAA found that teen crashes cost the rest of us more than $34 billion annually.

    Bradford Hill, the Massachusetts state representative who sponsored legislation that cut speeding by 33 percent and reduced serious-injury crashes by more than 40 percent, said most parents in his state support the law. “They say, ‘I’m so glad these changes were made,’ ” he says.

    Some teens feel the same way. In New York, 18-year-old David Mangano of White Plains sees the value in his state’s law that limits teen passengers to two. “If you have a lot of people in the car, it’s really hectic,” he says, “so it’s nice to have that restriction.”

 

  1. GET TOUGH AT HOME
    Even if your state has weak laws, you can still set the rules for your own teen. “You’re the parent,” says AAA’s McNaull. “You control when your child gets licensed, you control the keys, and you control the car. You can put significant conditions in place.”Start by making sure your teen always wears a seat belt. “It’s the single most effective safety device in your car,” says Nason. But more than half of teen drivers killed on the road in 2006 weren’t buckled up.

    You can also lay down your own phase-in law. Set your teen’s night driving limit to no later than 10 p.m., don’t allow more than one passenger, and ban cell phones-even with a headset. “Using a phone with a headset is of no benefit to an inexperienced driver,” says University of Utah researcher David Strayer.

    If your teen balks? Too bad, says Arthur Kellermann, MD, an emergency room physician who’s also an injury-prevention researcher at Emory University and the father of a 20-year-old. “This is tough love,” he says.

    Nicole Nason agrees: “Every time you say, ‘You don’t start this car without a seat belt on, you can’t drive late at night, this is not the party mobile,’ you are saving your children’s lives.”

 

Which States Have the Toughest Laws? 
In a first-ever analysis, we examined each state’s graduated driver licensing, seat belt, and DUI laws and awarded points based on strictness. (Alaska gets more points in the seat belt category because anyone 16 and older who isn’t buckled up can be fined; New Hampshire gets fewer points because it has no seat belt laws for 18- and 19-year olds.)BEST
Alaska, California, Delaware, Washington, Illinois, Maine, Indiana, Oregon, Hawaii, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, District of Columbia

GOOD
New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Nebraska, Maryland, Oklahoma, Colorado, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Louisiana, Utah

FAIR
Massachusetts, Vermont, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Texas, West Virginia, Arizona, Florida, Nevada

WORST
New Hampshire, Kansas, Wyoming, South Carolina, Mississippi, North Dakota, Minnesota, Idaho, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Montana, Arkansas  


The Teen Death Toll
States with the toughest driving laws tend to have lower fatality rates, but other factors count too. Rural roads (with higher speed limits, less traffic, and fewer nearby medical services) are a big crash risk. The following is a list of the top 10 states in teen-driving fatalities per 100,000 kids over the past decade.
Mississippi 35.1, Wyoming 34.5, Montana 33.8, Alabama 33.5, Missouri 32.5, Arkansas 31.9, Tennessee 30.8, S. Dakota 30.8, Kentucky 30.6, Oklahoma 28.3   

 

From Reader’s Digest – August 2008  

 

• Kylie Grayden, 17, of Shorewood, Minnesota, glanced at her iPod while driving with her cousin and a friend, both 17. When she veered off the road and flipped her car into a ditch, she and her friend were killed.

• Heading home from practice, Jonathan Chapman, a 16-year-old high school basketball player from La Plata, Maryland, was reportedly speeding when his car rammed an SUV. He and three friends, ages 14 to 16, were killed.

• Five days after graduating from high school, Bailey Goodman, 17, of Fairport, New York, and four classmates were on their way to her family’s cottage. Moments after text messages were exchanged on Bailey’s cell phone, she slammed into an oncoming truck. All five teens were killed.

 

More than 5,000 teenagers die in car accidents every year. “If we saw these numbers coming back from a war zone, it would be on the front page every day,” says Vincent Leibell, a state senator from New York, where some 200 teens died in crashes in 2006.

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Identity Theft

February 12th, 2010

Identity Theft – Are You At Risk?

You have just applied for a credit card and was shocked when you were turned down due to a low credit score. This is impossible because you’ve always paid your bills on time. Recently, a debt collector called to demand payment on a medical bill that you never saw a doctor for. In the mail you find a credit card that you’ve never applied for.

What’s happening? You could be the victim of identity theft. Someone is using your personal information to obtain credit. But then the bills go unpaid, the company itself or a debt collection company contacts you to demand payment. As a result, your credit report is likely to be impacted and contain negative information about your bill-payment history. Your credit score has probably been lowered considerably, making it difficult or impossible to obtain new credit yourself. Let us help you before this unfortunate event happens.

You need to be well aware of the identity theft epidemic that is happening all around us. Thieves only need one single piece of personal information to steal your identity and turn your financial life upside down. According to the Federal Trade Commission there are nearly 10 million people, or five percent of the adult population, who become victims of identity theft each year. Identity theft costs victims an estimated $5 billion in out-of-pocket expenses from trying to reclaim their good credit.

For identity theft prevention tips and the rest of the article visit our webpage and check out our February 2010 newsletter, or simply click on this link http://brownellinsurance.com/2010newsletters/feb10/feb10.html

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Six Ways To Lower Your Homeowners Insurance

February 5th, 2010

1. Help Us Shop Your Insurance – A month before your renewal, you will receive a questionnaire from us. It is important you fill it out and return it to us as soon as possible. We call our renewals on a regular basis and review the questionnaire with you so that we can shop your homeowners to get you the best possible rate.

2. Raise Your Deductible – The higher your deductible, the more money you can save on your premiums. We recommend a deductible of at least $500. If you can afford to raise your deductible to $1,000, you may save as much as 25%.

3. Don’t Confuse What You Paid For Your House With Rebuilding Costs – The land under your house isn’t at risk from theft, windstorm, fire and the other perils covered in your homeowner’s policy, so we don’t include its value in deciding how much homeowner’s insurance to buy. Notify us if you make upgrades or increase the size of your home so that we can increase your coverage for the improvements.

4. Buy Your Home and Automobile Policies From The Same Insurer – Many of our companies that sell homeowners, auto and liability coverage will take 5% to 15% off your premium if you buy two or more policies from them.

5. Updates On Your Home Can Save You $$$ On Insurance – If you own an older home, consider modernizing your heating, plumbing and electrical systems to reduce the risk of fire and water damage. The age of your roof can also affect your premium.

6. Improve Your Home Security – You can usually get discounts of at least 5% for a smoke detector, burglar alarm or dead bolt locks. Most of our companies offer to cut your premium by as much as 15% or 20% if you install a sophisticated sprinkler system and a fire and burglar alarm that rings at the police, fire or other monitoring stations. Please notify us if you add one of these systems to get your discount.

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Snowmobile Safety

February 2nd, 2010

The Maine Snowmobile Association Thank you to the Association for this great article.

Some Simple Steps to Safe Riding:

RIDE TO THE RIGHT – Only makes sense. Odds are good that an automobile traveling in the left hand lane of the road will sooner or later run into another car head on. Same goes for sleds. It is required by law that a snowmobiler operate to the right of center on the trail when approaching or navigating a curve, corner, grade or hill – why not just stay to the right, even on straight-aways.

RIDE SOBER – Don’t drink and ride. Don’t let anyone in your group drink and ride. Maine and New Hampshire have a tough snowmobile DWI laws. Restaurants, Inns, Lodges and Resorts welcome snowmobilers who want to have a few drinks with their friends. But please do it after you’ve finished sledding, not while riding. Be a good friend and lift the keys of a fellow snowmobiler, who thinks he’s OK when he’s not.

RIDE AT A REASONABLE SPEED- Speed on a Maine and New Hampshire snowmobile trail is measured on a standard of reasonable speed for the existing conditions. If you cannot control your sled safely at the speed that you are traveling in the current conditions – you’re speeding. Slow down. Snowmobile clubs across the state host radar runs, hill climbs and races all season long. If you want to ride hard and fast, do it at one of these events, and take home a trophy to boot!

USE HAND SIGNALS- The consistent use of a simple set of standardized hand signals on the trails keeps movement orderly and predictable. These standardized signals inform other sledders of your actions and allow everyone around you to anticipate the need to slow down. The MSA has distributed thousands of copies of these hand signals over the past five years and reports from the trails are that signal usage is up significantly. This simple skill is one that every snowmobiler can learn and use to increase their safety on the trails.

RIDE DEFENSIVELY- You and your group can do everything right and still encounter a sledder who’s doing everything wrong. Don’t let their poor judgment or illegal behavior injure you. Always expect the unexpected from the sledder coming toward you. If there is a problem, you’ll be prepared to respond and avoid a dangerous situation. …And keep an eye out for 4 legged animals as well. Moose and deer live where you’re sledding. Wildlife always has the right of way. If you come up behind a moose on the trail stay far away and wait for the animal to lumber off. If any large animal shows an interest in the fact that you are on the trail, turn around and leave. Don’t turn off your sled and follow animals on foot to get a better look. You may get a much closer look than you wanted.

These additional steps will protect you even further:

Carry a map and stay on the trails. Shortcuts can not only be hazardous if you don’t know the area, sledders can get “turned around” pretty easily out there. Why bother heading out across unmarked open tracts if you have 13,000 miles of signed trails?

Don’t snowmobile alone. If you run into mechanical trouble, you’ll have someone along who can truck you back home; bury your sled, and there’s extra hands to help dig out; take a wrong turn, and there’s someone else to blame…

Take care crossing public ways – on busier roads, have a member of the group check for traffic and direct sledders across.

Let someone know where you’re planning to go and when you plan to return. An itinerary form left with a friend, the motel staff etc is invaluable if you actually run into trouble on the trail. If your return is delayed, contact the person aware of your trip plans if at all possible, to head off an unnecessary search effort.

Check weather reports before heading out. Ever been on a sled in a white out? Enough said.

Dress appropriately (layers) and wear a helmet. No one should operate a snowmobile without the protection of a helmet. A life saver in the case of an accident, your helmet will also keep you protected from the occasional tree branch “face slapper” and inclement weather.

Carry a basic repair kit. This will save a lot of frustration if you have a spare belt, a couple tools, etc. with you. (An even better idea is to give your sled a good going over before every trip.)

Don’t cross frozen bodies of water unless you are absolutely sure of ice thickness. Trails generally will not lead you across ponds or lakes unless there is no reasonable alternative. Bridges are provided to cross rivers and streams. However, you will find some places where you may cross water, such as marked passage on well frozen lakes – check locally for current ice thicknesses.

Don’t overdrive your lights. Don’t tangle with a wire, stump or rock on a fast machine in the middle of a cold, dark night.

Remembering these safety guidelines will help you to Ride Right in Maine and New Hampshire. Enjoy Snowmobiling the Way It Should Be – Fun and Safe! So be smart — use caution and common sense, and you’ll have a memorable and safe winter adventure on your snow machine.

Maine snowmobile laws can be viewed on line at http://www.mesnow.com/SnowmobileLaws.html Contact IF&W at 207-287-8000.

New Hampshire snowmobile laws can be viewed on line at http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/OHRV/snowmobile_safety.html Inland Fisheries Division fisheries@wildlife.nh.gov 603-271-2501 or 603-271-2502

Contact our office for a free quote on the insurance for your snowmobile. Get discounts for multiple sleds or with home and auto packages.

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Winter Driving Tips

February 2nd, 2010

winter-drivingWinter Driving Tips: Save Yourself From the Challenges of Driving in Adverse Weather

Severe weather can be both frightening and dangerous for automobile travel. Motorists need to know the safety rules and techniques for dealing with winter driving in New England. We would like to remind you to be cautious while driving in adverse weather and are offering helpful information on winter driving from AAA.

AAA recommends the following winter driving tips:

  • Avoid driving while you’re fatigued. Getting the proper amount of rest before taking on winter weather tasks reduces driving risks.
  • Never warm up a vehicle in an enclosed area, such as a garage.
  • Make certain your tires are properly inflated.
  • Never mix radial tires with other tire types.
  • Keep your gas tank at least half full to avoid gas line freeze-up.
  • If possible, avoid using your parking brake in cold, rainy and snowy weather.
  • Do not use cruise control when driving on any slippery surface (wet, ice, sand).
  • Always look and steer where you want to go.
  • Use your seat belt every time you get into your vehicle.

Tips for long-distance winter trips:

  • Watch weather reports prior to a long-distance drive or before driving in isolated areas. Delay trips when especially bad weather is expected. If you must leave, let others know your route, destination and estimated time of arrival.
  • Always make sure your vehicle is in peak operating condition by having it inspected by a AAA Approved Auto Repair facility.
  • Keep at least half a tank of gasoline in your vehicle at all times.
  • Pack a cellular telephone with your local AAA’s telephone number, plus blankets, gloves, hats, food, water and any needed medication in your vehicle.
  • If you become snow-bound, stay with your vehicle. It provides temporary shelter and makes it easier for rescuers to locate you. Don’t try to walk in a severe storm. It’s easy to lose sight of your vehicle in blowing snow and become lost.
  • Don’t over exert yourself if you try to push or dig your vehicle out of the snow.
  • Tie a brightly colored cloth to the antenna or place a cloth at the top of a rolled up window to signal distress. At night, keep the dome light on if possible. It only uses a small amount of electricity and will make it easier for rescuers to find you.
  • Make sure the exhaust pipe isn’t clogged with snow, ice or mud. A blocked exhaust could cause deadly carbon monoxide gas to leak into the passenger compartment with the engine running.
  • Use whatever is available to insulate your body from the cold. This could include floor mats, newspapers or paper maps.
  • If possible run the engine and heater just long enough to remove the chill and to conserve gasoline.

Tips for driving in the snow:

  • Accelerate and decelerate slowly. Applying the gas slowly to accelerate is the best method for regaining traction and avoiding skids. Don’t try to get moving in a hurry. And take time to slow down for a stoplight. Remember: It takes longer to slow down on icy roads.
  • Drive slowly. Everything takes longer on snow-covered roads. Accelerating, stopping, and turning – nothing happens as quickly as on dry pavement. Give yourself time to maneuver by driving slowly.
  • The normal dry pavement following distance of three to four seconds should beincreased to eight to ten seconds. This increased margin of safety will provide the longer distance needed if you have to stop.
  • Know your brakes. Whether you have antilock brakes or not, the best way to stop is threshold breaking. Keep the heel of your foot on the floor and use the ball of your foot to apply firm, steady pressure on the brake pedal.
  • Don’t stop if you can avoid it. There’’s a big difference in the amount of inertia it takes to start moving from a full stop versus how much it takes to get moving while still rolling. If you can slow down enough to keep rolling until a traffic light changes, do it.
  • Don’t power up hills. Applying extra gas on snow-covered roads just starts your wheels spinning. Try to get a little inertia going before you reach the hill and let that inertia carry you to the top. As you reach the crest of the hill, reduceyour speed and proceed down hill as slowly as possible.
  • Don’t stop going up a hill. There’’s nothing worse than trying to get moving up a hill on an icy road. Get some inertia going on a flat roadway before you take on the hill.
  • Stay home. If you really don’t have to go out, don’t. Even if you can drive well in the snow, not everyone else can. Don’t tempt fate: If you don’t have somewhere you have to be, watch the snow from indoors

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New Hampshire / Maine Wedding Insurance

January 28th, 2010

Peace of Mind

New Hampshire / Maine Wedding Insurance

New Hampshire / Maine Wedding Insurance

You work hard planning to make your wedding a very special day in your lives but unfortunately, things can go wrong. How often have you heard stories about a venue closing right before a brides big day? Or a bad storm hitting on the day of the wedding? Or a bridal shop going up in flames full of bridal dresses?

The good news is that a Wedding Insurance Policy can cover a variety of situations, reducing the amount of stress and risk you have when planning your wedding. Wedding Insurance is exactly what it states – an insurance policy that covers your wedding and financially protects you against misfortune and mishap. As the average cost of weddings continues to rise, now $27,000 in the US, wedding insurance becomes more of a necessity to protect this valuable investment. Wedding Insurance policies are relatively inexpensive – a basic policy costs between $160 to $500 – and can give you peace of mind.

Don’t put your big day at risk. To learn more download this valuable brochure and call us today to find out more about Wedding Insurance. Click here if you would like to purchase it directly now.

Brownell Insurance are specialists in insurance for NH and Maine.

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