The department was recently awarded $10,000 from the Governor's Highway Safety Grant program which will help them in what the department has named, "Keeping You Alive in 2005."
It is a law in Kentucky that you buckle your seat belt and also secure children in the proper safety restraints while driving an automobile. The grant will be used to pay overtime to Russellville officers who will be out on the streets for the next 10 months specifically to ticket offenders.
"They are not going to be out there to give warnings," said Captain Barry Dill of the RPD. "This is an enforcement initiative and officers are being encouraged to enforce and not let it slide. We want to make the highways as safe as possible, and with this grant we are able to help bring that to reality."
Dill said officers will be targeting certain areas where accidents have been occurring. They will be on the look out for people not wearing their seat belts and who are breaking the speed limit.
Jennifer Wood, records clerk for the RPD, has compiled a traffic collision analysis that helps officers know where the hot spots are.
"This initiative will hopefully reduce the number of accidents that are occurring in Russellville and increase awareness to seat belt usage as well a speed control," said Dill.
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