The Peachtree City Police Department has achieved a nationwide accolade for having one of the best traffic safety programs in the United States.
The department won third place in the National Law Enforcement Challenge among city police departments which have between 46 and 75 sworn officers. It also won the competition’s overall “Technology Award” for new and innovative approaches to improving traffic safety through the use of technology.
The competition focuses on three major traffic safety priorities: occupant protection, impaired driving and speeding, police said.
To participate, the department had to provide documentation on its efforts and effectiveness in areas such as officer training, public information and enforcement to reduce vehicle crashes and injuries. Key points included record decreases in total vehicle crashes and also the percentage of crashes involving injuries.
Police said those achievements were due to the implementation of “data driven” approaches to traffic safety, which uses statistical data to show which areas to concentrate with traffic enforcement, such as areas with higher numbers of auto crashes, police said.
The award affirms that the department’s efforts to improve traffic safety, led by the officers of the Community Response Team, “are on the cutting edge of current law enforcement best practices.”
