Car accidents are something that no one whats to hear about or see, especially when they involve a teen or young adult. Car accidents are even worse when they hit close to home and you know someone involved. One of our insurance professionals at Bucci Insurance Group, Gloria Rubio, has a connection to a young man who passed away early Saturday morning after a car accident.

The young man’s name was Jason Fontes of Pawtucket, RI. Early Saturday morning, Fontes was driving south on Route 146 when he lost control of his vehicle and veered off the highway into the woods. Police found Fontes, pronounced dead at the scene, in his car 135 feet from the road. According to the police, speed and wet conditions were a factor in the accident. Fontes was only 21 years old.

Gloria’s daughter was a friend of Fontes and says that her daughter is taking the tragic accident hard. Just a week earlier, her daughter and Fontes were making plans to get together in the coming weeks. Having one of your friends suddenly pass away without having a chance to say goodbye is something that no one ever wants to do. However, it is a reality that it might happen one time in your life.

We can only do so much to try to prevent these accidents. At Bucci Insurance, we can help you with your auto insurance policy to make sure that you are protected in times of an accident. We will fit your policy to the specific needs of you and your family. The next step after setting up an auto insurance policy, is to talk to the young drivers in your family about driving safety. Here are some tips and topics to talk to your young driver about from the RI Department of Health:

• Don’t rely on simply driver education. Talk to your new driver about the responsibility of driving.
• Learn about teen driving restrictions in the state
• Do not let them drive at night
• Restrict passengers in the car
• Help teach your teen how to drive
• Be a role model to your teen
• Tell them to ALWAYS wear their seat belt
• Prohibit drinking
• Choose safe cars for your teen, not a car solely based on the brand
• Talk about drowsy driving (A topic we recently covered in the blog.)

Those are just some steps to take to make sure that your teen is driving safe. Accidents are happening all over the state: early last week two 16-year-old boys from North Providence were critically injured, last year in February a car accident in Cranston left three young adults dead and four injured, and at the same time I was involved in an accident that left my friend almost without an arm resulting from not wearing her seat belt.  Each year 5,000 teens and young adults die and 400,000 are seriously injured as a result of a car accident. The accidents we discussed are only four accidents involving teens and young adults within the last year, think of how many more have occurred in our state alone.

Make sure to talk to your young driver about the dangers of driving. It is important and could save their life one day. Please come to Bucci Insurance with any questions you may have about your auto insurance and how we can get you the best policy for you and your family. Our thoughts go out to Jason Fontes family and friends, along with any other families that have lost someone close to them this year as a result of a car accident. Please drive safe!

Our customers are important to us at Bucci Insurance. We want to make sure that our clients get the best in personal insurance and business insurance. We work hard everyday to find the right policies for our customers. We want to make sure that they feel comfortable with us, which is why we try to be as personable with our customers as possible. On our YouTube page, BucciInsuranceGroup, we have a video of testimonials from a variety of our customers. Our customers who gave the testimonials include: Don McRobert of Don McRobert Design, Michael Holland of Holland Galleries, Stu Forer of Advantage Senior Advisory Group, Al Ferruolo an Attorney of law, Jim Kirkpatrick of Northwestern Mutual, Sal Sauco of Pro Systems, Sean Stephenson of Edge Wise Painting, and Ed Forer of Blue Sky Signs.

What our customers think about our service is important to us. By having these customers give testimonials we get to see how they feel about our service, as well as letting potential customers know what we have to offer.Many of the customers on the video have been with us for over five years and have even started to use our business insurance. We feel the reason is because that we truly care about our customers and try to give them insurance that suits exactly what they need. We want to give our clients the best prices possible as well.

A.W. Bucci and Tony Bucci have done a great job of creating an insurance agency that is praised by a variety of clients through out Rhode Island. Many of the clients make a point to say that our staff is fantastic and that we work together well. That is something that we pride ourselves on. The staff at Bucci Insurance is great and cares about giving our clients what they want and need.

We hope that our testimonials will show those looking to buy insurance that we are the right insurance company for them. We truly care about our clients and try to be as personable with them as possible. Our long-term  relationships with our customers is something that we pride ourselves on. Sean Stephenson says, ” I would refer anyone else I could to him.” We feel that we are doing our job when we hear responses like that.

If you have any questions about auto insurance, home insurance, or any other insurance please call us at 401.558.0101. We are happy to speak with you and can not wait to help you with all of your questions.

Everyone has probably driven when they did not get a full eight hours of sleep the night before, right? I know I have and yesterday the Providence Journal made a point of this as well. Their article was about how driving when drowsy can lead to accidents. Now, most of us do not intentionally dose off while driving; It is just something that happens when we do not get enough sleep, we can not control it. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that 90 percent of officers have reported pulling someone over because they thought they were intoxicated, but in actuality the drivers were simply tired. It is crazy to think that being sleepy can cause the same effects as being intoxicated while driving.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NSF) reported that 100,000 police reported accidents caused by driver drowsiness every year in the mid-1990s. Can you just image how many more accidents are reported today? Today people are on the go even more than they were 10 years ago. Over half the country is probably not getting the recommended eight hours of sleep and then getting up to drive to work in the morning. It is just not safe anymore. At Bucci Insurance we can protect you while driving by providing you with the perfect auto insurance in Rhode Island. When it comes to drowsy driving, we can inform you of ways to prevent it!

First we will inform you of some of the danger signs that AAA pointed out: not remembering the last few miles, wandering thoughts, not being able to focus, drifting across the road, tailing without realizing it, and missing traffic signs. Now, if you have experienced any of those signs you probably did not get a good night sleep. If that happens here are some things that you can do. Pull over you car, ideally into a rest area, and try to take a short walk. If you are still tired, NSF advises people to take a 20-minute power nap. If you are extremely tired, then get a hotel room and go to bed. It is worth it to spend that extra money and get a hotel room, rather get possibly getting in a car accident and endangering your lives and others. Other small steps to adopt are taking regular breaks on long trips, having a driving companion, not drinking sweet drinks, and eating healthy food.

You need to remember also that drowsiness is not just a nighttime occurrence. We can also feel drowsy in the mid-afternoon. An example of this is, one of my friends was driving home from URI and did not get eight hours of sleep the night before. It was around noon and she was so tired that she fell asleep at the wheel and flipped her car into the wooded area on the highway. Luckily, she was safe and did not endanger anyone else, but if she had just slept a little longer and waited a couple more hours to go home it would not have happened. The bottom line is that everyone needs to get a good night’s sleep! It is the best remedy for drowsy driving, and the easiest to do.

The NSF sponsors a whole Drowsy Driving Prevention Week, this year it will be during November 8-14. It is important that we make people aware of this dangerous driving. No one is invincible when it comes to this. Nodding off for only a couple seconds can cause you to drive off the road or cause an accident. We want our customers to be safe. If you have any questions about your auto insurance please call our Rhode Island insurance agency at 401.558.0101 or 877.210.7159.  Now, go get your eight hours of sleep, count your sheep do whatever you have to do to drive safe!

Bucci Insurance’s customer of the week is Ken Sepe!

Ken is the vice president of engineering at Electro Standards Laboratories in Cranston, Rhode Island. This is a family owned and operated business that was started by his father 34 years ago. Today, Ken and his two brothers run the company. One brother does manufacturing and installing, the other consulting engineering, and finally Ken works directly with sales and engineering.

Today, I had the pleasure of speaking with our customer of the week, Ken Sepe! Ken is a Rhode Island native and graduated from Cornell University. Ken’s two brothers also went off to school at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.  All three became engineers and came back Rhode Island to work at their family owned and operated company.

Ken said that he loves working with his family every day. Each of the brothers has a different set of responsibilities and unique attributes. By putting all of their unique qualities together, they are able to work well together. I asked Ken if he wanted their children to work there to keep this family business growing, and he said that if it is in the interest of the children. It seems that this family has the engineering chops running through their veins, so we should only hope that the children will want to join their dads!

Ken and his family have created a company that truly cares about their customers. Ken told me that he loves when a customer asks for something specific. Sometimes he gets calls from people saying, “I wish you would make a product that did this or that,” and Ken responds to them by doing it. Ken is all about the design and development of the products. He enjoys creating products that are customized for a customer.

I ended our conversation by asking Ken, “What is the most interesting product or product that you are most proud of having a part in making?” His answer was something that I did not see coming and it is truly an accomplishment. About 10 years ago, the company received a call from a government agency. They were looking for companies to create a prototype of a fiber optic switch that was not on the market. The agency said they had no budget and would entertain their idea, along with other companies. In the end, Electro Standards prototype worked best and the agency ordered about 1,000 of them, which was over a million dollar sale at once! Ken found out in the end that his company created the prototype for three times less than the other companies. Ken and I then joked that if he knew that at the time, he would have tried to up the price. Hey, I don’t blame him! This is a company that creates one-of-a-kind products for their customers and gives them the best quality.

Bucci Insurance is proud to have Ken Sepe as a client. We love that Ken tries to give his customers the best product possible because that is what we try to do every day at Bucci Insurance! Ken thank you for being a customer and we are proud to say that you are our customer of the week! Please visit our Bucci Insurance website and find out how we can help you with your auto insurance, home insurance, or any other insurance questions you may have.