PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
Historically, Greenville
County is one of the five counties in South Carolina which experiences
the highest number of traffic collisions, injuries, and fatalities.
The county leads the state in property and economic losses due to traffic
crashes. This loss in 1998 was estimated at $191.6 million. During 1999,
vehicle crashes in Greenville County accounted for 11 percent of the
total crashes in the state, and the county led the state in motor vehicle
crash-related fatalities. Approximately 60 percent of all admissions
to the Department of Trauma and Surgery at Greenville Memorial Hospital
from 1995 through 1999 were for traffic crash-related injuries.
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
The Greenville County
Safe Communities program was created in 1998 to help decrease traffic
crash-related injuries, fatalities and economic losses. Objectives of
the program include the following:
- To establish a Safe Communities
program in Greenville County
- To maintain an aggressive,
selective traffic enforcement strategy
- To develop and conduct
local traffic safety activities and support national traffic safety
programs
- To develop and implement
a plan for financial continuity of the Safe Communities program
STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES
In 1998,
a traffic safety programs administrator was appointed to shape and manage
the three-year Greenville County Safe Communities demonstration project.
The program administrator selected and organized a Safe Community Program
Committee, whose members were selected from several working groups:
engineering/evaluation, education, data collection, employee safety,
funding and enforcement. Committee members were comprised of county
and state engineers, reporters, health care providers, law enforcement
officials, transportation safety coordinators for the school district,
firefighters and insurance representatives. Members sought to develop
a countywide approach to resolving Greenville's traffic safety issues.
The Safe Community Program Committee developed a variety of activities
designed to meet the program's goals and objectives. These include:
- Creating
traffic safety educational brochures
- Developing
safety programs specifically tailored for Hispanic Americans and other
emerging minority populations
- Promoting
national safety events locally, including Bystander Care for the
Injured and National Walk Your Children to School Week
- Convening
a coalition of Greenville area high school and college students to
form Student Advisers for Excellence (SAFE) as a vehicle for recommending
traffic safety activities and for addressing traffic safety issues
specific to youth
- Organizing
the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety (NETS) to provide expertise
and organization for data collection and analysis, preparation and
administration of survey instruments and identification of funding
sources for the Safe Communities effort
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