Weymouth Awarded $5K Grant to Enforce Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety

The Weymouth Police Department was awarded a $5,000 grant last week to ensure the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists on the roads.

The grant will be used to educate and to protect Weymouth pedestrians and cyclists from future injuries and fatalities. The funding will give the town enforcement and decoy patrols, breakaway signs and crosswalk reflective tape.

Weymouth Police hopes these newly funded enforcements and equipment will prosecute those who do not share the road and put themselves or others in danger and the rate of pedestrian and bicyclists related fatalities and injuries on the roads will decrease.

Pedestrians have sustained nearly 320 fatal injuries and 3,456 serious injuries from motor vehicle crashes and bicyclists have sustained about 43 fatal injuries and 1,106 serious injuries from motor vehicle crashes from 2008 to 2012, the Massachusetts Traffic Records Analysis Center reported.

Weymouth and 70 other police departments across the state received $285,500 in funding to make the roads a safer place, Weymouth Police Department posted on its Facebook page.

The grants will help prosecute those who do not share the road and put themselves or others in danger, Weymouth Police reported.

The grants were awarded by the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security Highway Safety Division from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.