CHPD seeks to reduce fatalities with $236k traffic safety grant

The Citrus Heights Police Department announced last week it was awarded a $236,190 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) to help fund a year-long program of safety-related efforts, including DUI checkpoints and distracted driving enforcement.

In a news release issued Tuesday, Lt. Jason Russo said grant funds will be used to reduce traffic-related deaths and injuries, citing an alarming rise in roadway fatalities on Citrus Heights streets — with five deaths this year so far, compared to zero in 2014.

“After falling dramatically between 2006 and 2010, the number of persons killed and injured in traffic collisions has been slowly rising,” the police statement reads. “Particularly alarming are recent increases in pedestrian and bicycle fatalities, the growing dangers of distracting technologies, and the emergence of drug-impaired driving as a major problem.”

In an effort to combat these trends, police said grant funds will go toward public awareness and educational presentations, motorcycle safety and distracted driving enforcement, seat belt and child safety seat enforcement, and DUI checkpoints. The Department says anti-DUI efforts will also include “stakeout operations” to monitor the “worst-of-the-worst” repeat DUI offenders, and roving “saturation patrols” which specifically search for DUI drivers.

The Department’s high-visibility anti-DUI efforts in the past have been aided by similar grants from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, receiving a $182,585 grant last year. In awarding this year’s grant, OTS Director Rhonda Craft said her agency’s goal is to achieve “zero deaths on our roadways,” and seeks “to create a culture of traffic safety” in Citrus Heights and around the state.