The Pismo Beach Police Department was awarded a $35,000 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) for a year long program of special enforcements and public awareness efforts to prevent traffic related deaths and injuries. The department will use the funding as part of the city’s ongoing commitment to keep our roadways safe and improve the quality of life through both enforcement and education.
“This funding is imperative towards our goal of reducing injury and death as a result of impaired driving in a continuing effort to keep our community safe,” said Pismo Beach Police Chief Jake Miller in a press release. “It provides us the ability to fund programs that we would not be able to perform without the grant and demonstrates our relationship with the California Office of Traffic Safety is one of common goals and objectives; safety for our citizens.”
After falling dramatically between 2006 and 2010, the number of persons killed and injured in traffic collisions saw slight increases in 2011 and 2012. Particularly worrisome are recent increases in pedestrian and motorcycle fatalities as well as the dangers of distracting technologies. This grant funding will provide opportunities to combat these and other devastating problems such as drunk and drugged driving and speeding.
“California’s roadways are still among the safest in the nation,” said OTS Director Rhonda Craft. “But to meet future mobility, safety, and sustainability objectives, we must create safer roadways for all users. The Pismo Beach Police Department will be using these and other resources to reach the vision we all share – Toward zero deaths, every 1 counts.”
Activities that the grant will fund starting this month include:
- Bike, Pedestrian and other educational presentations
- DUI checkpoints
- DUI saturation patrols
- Participate in the National Distracted Driving Awareness Month in April
- Participate in the NHTSA Click It or Ticket mobilization period in May
- Compilation of DUI “Hot Sheets,” identifying worst-of-the-worst DUI offenders
- Specialized DUI and drugged driving training such as Standardized Field Sobriety Testing (SFST), and Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement (ARIDE).
Funding for this program is from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
