U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater Announces $1 Million for Pennsylvania to Help Reduce Alcohol-Related Crashes |
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Topics: Rodney E. Slater
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NHTSA
September 30, 1999
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NHTSA 48-99
Thursday, September 30, 1999
Contact: NHTSA, Tim Hurd, (202) 366-9550
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater today announced a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania that gives Pennsylvania $1 million dollars to reduce alcohol-related crashes.
"A strong message and tough state laws have done a lot to bring about a change in the public's attitude toward impaired driving," said Secretary Slater. "Safety is President Clinton's highest transportation priority and these funds will work toward lowering those numbers."
he funds will assist the state in increasing levels of law enforcement with heightened publicity through a 30-month demonstration and evaluation program.
Unlike a grant, a cooperative agreement involves closer participation by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the state during administration the program. To receive the funding, Pennsylvania submitted a proposal that met specific requirements for administering the demonstration program.
Pennsylvania plans to use the funds to develop media materials for an in-state enforcement campaign, provide incentives for increasing sobriety checkpoint activities, and support of a full- time sobriety checkpoint coordinator. The federal funding will also support a program evaluation that will provide critical information needed by the law enforcement community on the extent to which enforcement efforts reduce alcohol-related crashes. The state will provide more than three million dollars in matching funds including $800,000 for the media campaign and $2.5 million for state-of-the-art breath test equipment.
"In 1998, a person was killed every 30 minutes in an alcohol-related crash. In Pennsylvania alone, 619 people died last year," said Ricardo Martinez, M.D., administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "Programs like this one in Pennsylvania will redouble our efforts to reduce the number of these crashes and the tragedies that accompany them."
This 30-month effort in Pennsylvania hopes to demonstrate that a comprehensive and sustained law enforcement effort combined with publicity directed at getting safety messages about this program to the public can result in a substantial drop in alcohol-related crashes.
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