Back to School Means Back on the Road: Safety Reminders for NJ Families
Back to school doesn't just mean shopping sprees and heart-warming first day photos. Soon, New Jersey roads will again be dotted with school buses, children on bikes, crossing guards, and student drivers.
While families are adjusting to new routines, it's a great time for drivers to slow down, review safety practices, and ensure family and teen vehicles are up to the job. Many drivers are pleasantly surprised by vehicle safety innovations, so we'll review which brands are leading the pack.
A quick road-safety reset
Plan a little extra time to get where you are going, and remember:
1) Respect the bus. In New Jersey, you must stop at least 25 feet away from a school bus with its red lights flashing, and remain stopped until the lights go off. It is one of the most enforced rules of the school year.
2) Slow down in school zones. Speeds drop, and pedestrian and bicyclists multiply. New Jersey carries steep fines for speeding in a school zone, so ease off well before the signs.
3) Watch for the small stuff. Kids dart out between parked cars, and everything is harder to see at dawn and dusk. Give yourself extra room.
4) Coach your new driver. If you have a teen with a permit or a fresh license, the first weeks of school throw a lot of new traffic at them all at once. Ride along, discuss potential issues, and set clear rules.
A safe vehicle does a lot of the work
Vehicle safety has changed more in the last ten years than in the 30 before it. Features that were once luxury add-ons are now standard on many new cars:
- automatic emergency braking
- blind-spot warnings
- lane-keeping assist
- rear cross-traffic alerts
That technology is like a second set of eyes, and when you're car shopping, you'll want to look for the IIHS Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ awards, and the federal NHTSA 5-Star rating. Both are independent, and both are a quick way to compare how a vehicle actually performs in crash testing and crash-avoidance evaluations.
How the brands compare on safety
In our area, Lester Glenn Auto Group carries a wide range of brands with stellar safety features.
Consumer Reports named Mazda the first-ever safest new-car brand in its new Safety Verdict rankings, placing it at the top of every automaker for overall real-world safety. Mazda also collected eight IIHS Top Safety Pick+ awards for 2025, more than any other automaker, with winners across its lineup, including the Mazda3 sedan and its CX-series SUVs.
Subaru models suchas the Forester and the Crosstrek Hybrid earned Top Safety Pick+ ratings, and Subaru's EyeSight driver-assist system comes standard on most of the lineup.
Honda has Top Safety Pick and Pick+ awards spread across the Civic, Accord, HR-V, Pilot, and the latest Passport. On top of that, the Honda Sensing suite is standard equipment.
Hyundai has quietly become a safety leader, too, earning IIHS awards on the Elantra, Tucson, Santa Fe, Sonata, and its Ioniq electric models, backed by the Hyundai SmartSense driver-assist package.
For Ford, the Mustang Mach-E earns Top Safety Pick+ and the F-150 earns Top Safety Pick, and the Ford Co-Pilot360 assist features are well respected.
For Chevrolet and GMC, models like the Traverse received IIHS recognition, and driver-assist technology is available across their SUVs and trucks.
Jeep and Ram also offer available active-safety and driver-assist features across their SUVs and trucks, from adaptive cruise to blind-spot monitoring.
Of course, these awards apply to specific models, model years, and sometimes specific build dates or trims. Lester Glenn Auto Group's team can tell you exactly which vehicles on the lot carry the current ratings.
Get ready for the school year
With locations across Ocean, Monmouth, and Middlesex counties, a Lester Glenn location is close by.
Book a back-to-school safety check, and the service team will inspect your brakes, tires, lights, and wipers. Shopping for something safer for the family, or a first car for a student? Browse the group's safety-rated lineup and take one out for a test drive. Get started at lesterglenn.com.
