Governor Eliot Spitzer today announced highway safety programs across the state will receive nearly $25 million in grants from the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee (GTSC). The Federal highway safety grants will be distributed among nearly 700 state, local and not-for-profit agencies to conduct various highway and traffic safety initiatives.

“We continue to work diligently to increase highway safety and reduce the number of needless crashes, serious injuries and fatalities on our roadways,” said Governor Spitzer. “The funding announced today will go a long way to further assist us in meeting these goals. It will provide the many grantees with substantial, front-line assistance with the many safety issues challenging motorists across the state.”

David J. Swarts, Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) Commissioner and Chair of the GTSC said: “GTSC looks forward to working closely with grantees to assist them in reaching their traffic safety goals. By utilizing this grant funding in innovative and creative ways, we can make certain we are doing all we can to help enforce motor vehicle laws and educate the motoring public on good driving behaviors.”

In 2008, the GTSC awarded $24.8 million for nearly 700 projects to address a variety of highway safety programs. In 2007, GTSC awarded a total of more than $22.3 million to 698 individual projects. Included in those programs are enforcement and education efforts regarding drinking and driving, passenger restraint laws and safety rules, aggressive driving, excessive speed, bicycle and pedestrian safety as well as others.

The grants announced today are divided into four distinct categories that include:

Buckle-Up New York (BUNY): Programs designed for grantees to do seat belt enforcement;
Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP): Initiatives by law enforcement to target individual traffic safety issues such as speed, aggressive driving and red light running;
Child Passenger Safety: Includes child passenger safety education, car seat checks, distribution of seats and child seat fitting stations; and,
Agency Programs: State, local and not-for-profit programs that cover additional traffic safety undertakings through education, enforcement, engineering, training or technology.

The grant funding announced today is part of the Governor’s commitment to public safety and improving the quality of life all across New York State. In the State of the State address given early this month the Governor said: “Without safe streets, there is no community.” Traffic safety is part of that message and the GTSC is building upon that commitment by providing this valuable assistance directly to those entities that will make our roadways safer.