FCSO awarded an $101k H.E.A.T. grant

ATLANTA - The Forsyth County Sheriff's Office has been awarded a major public safety partnership H.E.A.T. grant totaling $101,630 from the Georgia Governor's Office of Highway Safety (GOHS) in Atlanta. H.E.A.T. stands for Highway Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic.

The primary goals of the H.E.A.T project are to: (1) reduce impaired driving crashes; (2) reduce excessive speeding; (3) increase the safety belt usage rate; and (4) educate the public about traffic safety.

The Forsyth County Sheriff's Office H.E.A.T. Unit will develop and implement strategies to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities from drugs and alcohol, speed and aggressive driving, and non-use of safety belts within their jurisdiction in the GOHS (NETEN) Traffic Enforcement Network. Sixteen Regional Traffic Enforcement Networks across the state are sponsored by the Governor's Office of Highway Safety to help enforce Georgia's year-round speed, impaired driving, and safety belt campaigns.

GOHS Director Bob Dallas said, "This H.E.A.T. grant expresses our thanks for joining the GOHS enforcement team and for the dedication and support of the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office for their efforts to protect Georgians from speeders and impaired drivers. Impaired driving related crashes killed 416 persons in Georgia in 2008. The chance of a crash being fatal here was almost six times higher for crashes related to alcohol or drugs than crashes not related to driver impairment."

The 2009/2010 GOHS H.E.A.T. grants total just over $3 million and will fund 21 specialized traffic enforcement units in strategic high-risk locations across the state. "The H.E.A.T. project aims to increase the impaired driver apprehension rate, reduce speeders, educate the public about DUI laws and provide a higher traffic enforcement profile in the community," said GOHS Director Dallas.

H.E.A.T. programs based on impaired driving and speeding data include 18 Georgia counties and have covered most of Metro Atlanta. The H.E.A.T. initiative was designed to serve Georgia jurisdictions with the highest rates of crashes, injuries and deaths.

The 2009/2010 GOHS H.E.A.T. grants were awarded to police departments in the cities of Atlanta, Dublin, Duluth, Sandy Springs, and Valdosta; and county police departments in Clayton, DeKalb, Dougherty, Glynn, and Henry, as well as Winder Police in a joint award with the Barrow County Sheriff's Office. H.E.A.T. grants were also awarded to Sheriff's Offices in Bibb, Carroll, Cherokee, Coweta, Douglas, Forsyth, Paulding, and Walton counties and the Georgia Department of Public Safety-GSP Nighthawks. "This combined enforcement effort by police, sheriffs, and State Troopers is the kind of high visibility protection the public deserves on our highways," said Director Dallas.

"The mission of the participating GOHS H.E.A.T. Units is to reduce the motor vehicle crashes, injuries, and fatalities through the systematic delivery of effective speed, DUI and aggressive driving countermeasures," Dallas added.

Some HEAT Units are large enough to be deployed as a single, self-contained enforcement team to conduct sobriety checkpoints and concentrated patrols targeting impaired drivers and speeders. Why the additional focus on speed? Safety experts at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration estimate that nationally, 31% of all fatal crashes involve drivers who were exceeding the speed limits or driving too fast for conditions.

"In Georgia, more than one out of five crash deaths involve unsafe or illegal speed," said Dallas. "The majority of the drivers in speed-related crashes are male and the chance of a crash being fatal is over three times higher in crashes related to speed."

In 2007, Georgia had 1,493 fatalities related to motor vehicle crashes. Impaired driving is no accident. And DUI is no victimless crime. Across the country impaired drivers kill another victim every thirty minutes. But there are more than 47,000 law enforcement officers covering all 159 counties in Georgia and GOHS is working overtime with them using programs like H.E.A.T. to raise public awareness, improve driver awareness and save lives.

As law enforcement partners in the Operation Zero Tolerance initiatives and the Click It Or Ticket mobilizations the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office H.E.A.T. Team will coordinate with GOHS during year-round waves of high visibility concentrated patrols, multi-jurisdictional road checks, and sobriety checkpoints.

They're also deployed as part of a GOHS quick response team called the Rolling THUNDER Task Force that includes all Georgia H.E.A.T. teams. During their first two deployments THUNDER Taskforce operations reduced highway fatalities in the Savannah-Chatham Metro Area by 58% in 2007 and reduced traffic deaths by 87% in Bartow and Paulding Counties in 2008.

Georgia's H.E.A.T. Units consistently provide the kind of high-profile traffic law enforcement required to save lives on our highways. "The presence of H.E.A.T. Units significantly increases public awareness and acts as a deterrent to many would-be impaired drivers. We know from experience that H.E.A.T. Teams like Forsyth County Sheriff's Office are an effective way to maximize our deterrent efforts," Dallas said.

Link: Governor's Office of Highway Safety