Carroll County Sheriff, Ken Pingrey, reported to the Board of Supervisors that the county has landed on the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau’s (GTSB) high five county list for accidents.
Pingrey says this does give them access to resources to help offset the added costs of being listed as one of the top five counties.
He explains that the funds will come as a reimbursement after over-time hours are paid out to employees. Representatives from the GTSB came to Carroll County and visited with the Sheriff’s Office, and Pingrey says they used a broad spectrum of statistics involving the correlation between the number of accidents, the amount of traffic and the severity of the incidences. The High Five Rural Traffic Safety Project has identified a goal of using the program and the resources as a way to help reduce rural fatalities. They take a three-tiered approach that includes enforcement, engineering and education. The county will work to educate drivers, and from the engineering aspect, will focus on ways to identify low cost safety improvements. The program originated in April of 2014, with the first-year participants reporting an increase in seat belt usage.
